Authors: A. C. James
After all, I’d died.
If I’d learned anything, it was that everything I thought I knew didn’t even touch the surface of what was really out there. Reality was determined by experience, and the one thing that I was certain of was how quickly reality could change from one moment to the next. If you stopped long enough to analyze it or absorb the shock, something else would take its place. Although, I thought that it was wrong that in their world you could die just for loving someone. It was hard enough to find love without limiting your options.
I frowned. “And what about love?”
“Love doesn’t matter,” Julian said. He looked lost for a moment before his customary grin returned. “And it certainly doesn’t cause anything but trouble.”
Arie grinned. “Hey, I’d agree with that. These days it’s been keeping me on my toes.”
I knew Arie was trying to cover his friend’s shift in mood. Still, those seemed like the words someone would say to avoid dealing with how they really felt. I’d only just met Julian, but it seemed like he was full of it and his happy-go-lucky grin was a bunch of bullshit. I still liked him, but it seemed like he was holding something back.
“Love is the only thing that matters,” I said, putting a hand on Arie’s arm.
Arie put his hand on top of mine.
“Holly, in my world, love can get you killed. It’s better to find someone that you’re sexually compatible with and not let matters of the heart get in the way,” Julian said with a sigh.
Arie coughed. “I haven’t seen your cousin, but then again we’ve had our own issues to deal with.” He gave my hand a quick squeeze and I knew I shouldn’t argue with Julian, even if I didn’t understand or agree with their customs. He was Arie’s friend. And I was glad that Arie didn’t bring up what we’d been dealing with, especially since his friend was acquainted with Katarina.
“Who’s the half-fae? And what’s the other half?” Arie asked.
“A half-fae, half-demon named Daeveena, and she’s going to get him killed if I don’t find him and drag him back to New York before someone figures out what he’s done.”
A dark look crossed Arie’s features. “Well, if I find out anything you’ll be the first to know. Do you still have the same cell number?”
Something in Arie’s expression and curt response made me think he wasn’t telling his friend the whole story, but I didn’t know what he was keeping from him or why. So at the moment I didn’t ask.
“Yeah, same number. I appreciate that.”
A waitress approached our table and turned toward Arie. She flipped her long silver-blue hair over her shoulder. “Sorry it took me so long. We’re a little short-staffed tonight. What can I get for you?”
The way that she greeted Arie wasn’t disrespectful, but there was something in her tone that seemed off. Her look of disdain toward him was unsupported by anything that Arie had done. I found it strange. Her lips were a thin unsmiling line. Then again, maybe she was just stressed because they were short-staffed without Luna tonight.
She must be new.
I’d never seen her at the club. Blue-gray light swirled around her legs and behind her like the train of a dress that rippled as she moved. I figured she had to be some sort of faerie. Most women tripped all over themselves when confronted with Arie’s good looks, but she seemed rather cool and didn’t register the customary warmth that went with waiting tables. I knew the routine from working at the Coffee Grind. You plastered a smile on your face even if was the last thing you felt like doing.
Arie released my hand. “Two pints of Puncture, -B blend.”
“And what about you?” The waitress turned toward Julian, practically purring as she threw him a come-hither look.
Julian didn’t seem to notice and gave her a friendly smile. “I’ll take a Vodka Red Bull.”
She dropped the pen she was holding and it fell next to my stool. When she bent over to get it, she placed one hand on the table, brushing against my arm. When the Sight took over I saw her in sneaking into Tessa’s office upstairs. The waitress was pulling a small object from the pottery depicted with homoerotic artwork that always sat on Tessa’s desk.
It was a small silver key.
She took the key and unlocked a drawer in Tessa’s desk. Then she removed a black canvas bag. When she unzipped the bag it revealed a large stack of money. I couldn’t be sure how much but it looked like a lot of cash. Hurrying out of her office she met with a burly man sitting at the bar. A red ball of light trailed behind his leather trench coat. My jaw tightened.
Just like Luna’s father. He’s a fire faerie!
Images swirled and blurred together. I couldn’t make out any sound to go with the pictures in my vision. He discreetly tucked the canvas bag into his coat when she handed it over and pulled a small bottle out of an inner coat pocket. The bottle contained a clear liquid and was marked with a label that read ‘Synthetic Inducer.’ She took the bottle from him and walked around the bar to the modified refrigerated tap system where we stored Puncture. I couldn’t see what she was doing with her back turned toward me, but when she turned back around the bottle looked empty.
The images dissolved as quickly as they had appeared.
She’d done something to tamper with our blood supply. It had to be some sort of poison. With the bad blood between vampires and the fae that ran the Chicago Crew there was no other logical explanation. The waitress departed still wearing the please-fuck-me expression that she’d directed at Julian.
Neither of them seemed to notice my discomfort.
“We need to see Tessa right away,” I said, giving Arie an imploring look. -
It’s important.
-
“She’s not here right now but she’ll be here soon,” Arie said. -
Can it wait?
-
I half-nodded, half-shook my head. I was just about to blurt what I had just seen in my vision when Arie gave me a puzzled look and turned to his friend and started talking.
Fuck! What should I do?
“So how’s business in New York these days?” Arie asked.
Arie seemed to take a genuine interest in his friend, but panic left me momentarily frozen. I couldn’t stop thinking about the waitress. And I wondered if the fae in my vision worked for Luna’s father. I didn’t know what I should do, because I didn’t know if the vision was something that had already happened or if it was going to happen. There was no way of knowing if the waitress had already tampered with the Puncture.
Julian shrugged. “Busy. Complicated. But I’ve managed to keep my clients out of the thick of it. It’s not really competition, but if it were I’d be winning.”
“So what do you do, Julian?” I asked, trying to be polite even though I wanted nothing more than to get up and go confront the waitress. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, and wished to God that Tessa were there. My mind spun in a million different directions. I looked toward the bar, but I didn’t see our waitress anywhere.
Something bad is going to happen. I need to do something…
“It’s not what he does, but who he represents,” Arie said.
Julian shrugged. “I’m a criminal defense attorney. It pays the bills.”
“Fighting to keep the damned out of jail for all of eternity. Right, Julian?” Arie asked, rhetorically.
I didn’t know how I knew it but I sensed that my vision wasn’t a glimpse of the future, this was the present. My gut instinct told me that whatever the waitress had planned was going to happen soon and if I didn’t do something to stop it things were going to get ugly.
-
Arie…?
-
Arie looked at me with concern from my telepathic entreaty.
“Like I said—it pays the bills,” Julian said.
The waitress returned with our drink order just when it looked like Arie was about to say something. She slid two pints of Puncture across the table to me and Arie. I desperately wanted water, but I couldn’t think about that now. Her mouth twisted into an ugly smile before she turned to walk away. As she left our table, Arie grabbed the glass and started to bring it to his mouth.
-
Stop!
- I grabbed Arie’s arm.
Arie looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
-
Please, you can’t.
-
“Don’t drink it.” I grabbed the glass from Arie. “There’s something wrong with it.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “Holly, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.” Both Arie and Julian were looking at me as if I’d grown two heads. “I’m sorry, Julian. I don’t mean to be rude. Arie, I saw something. It’s hard to explain but we need to stop serving Puncture. Now.”
I looked around the crowded bar at the pint glasses filled with the familiar red liquid on various tables. Bile rose in the back of my throat. There weren’t many vampires in the bar when Arie had me cuffed to the pole, but now there were plenty and drinks were beginning to be served throughout the bar as Arie and his friend were reminiscing.
-
Please, Arie. The Puncture.
-
I wondered if any of them had taken a sip. Maybe it wasn’t too late to stop whatever our waitress had planned.
Arie searched my eyes. -
What about it? Tell me what you saw?
-
I shot him a panicked look. -
You can’t let them drink it because it’s been altered. She put something in it. I don’t know what.
-
I must have looked terrified. And I could tell from his expression that he understood the gravity of the situation.
“You need to do something now. Please, Arie. You can’t let them drink it because the faerie did something to it. Something bad. I think it’s some sort of poison. Please, you have to hurry.”
Arie got up and started to make his way over to the bar. But it was too late. A vampire ten feet in front of me leaped from his barstool and clutched at his throat. Then all I could hear was screaming as vampires around us rose from their seats, clawing at their skin. It blistered as if it were being burned from the inside out. Arie and the bouncer started yelling and herding the humans toward exits to clear the bar of human clientele.
But all the screams sounded the same.
Julian followed Arie’s lead and started ushering a half-naked brunette onto an elevator. No one knew what was happening. It took me a minute to react as I took in the mass hysteria and chaos. A female vampire at a table behind me started shrieking, her skin blistering and melting onto the barstool. Her skin dripped like plastic and smelled worse than anything imaginable. Bile rose in my throat, threatening to retch forth.
Oh, God.
I didn’t know how to help her, or if I could, but I felt compelled to at least try to do something. I swallowed the bile about to surface, ignoring the horror of the situation and forced myself to take action.
She fell to the ground, moaning as her skin continued to melt like a grilled cheese sandwich. Her eyes rolled in her head and I could tell she was about to black out. Kneeling next to her, I ignored the smell of burning flesh, and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t know what I was doing. I tried to remember what it felt like when I’d defeated Katarina.
As I closed my eyes to block out the pandemonium, I remembered Rue’s words. Instead of feeling warmth pricking out from my core and through my fingertips, warmth was being drawn in—from her to me. When I opened my eyes I could see the blisters on her skin being absorbed into her body. Her face looked as unblemished and pale as I imagined it did before her face started melting off.
Sharp pain like pins and needles coursed through my body. The poison circulating through my bloodstream burned my veins. I rocked forward bracing my arm against the floor to support my weight and keep me from falling on top of the vampire in my lap. Multicolored spots, followed by gray, twirled in front of my eyes. I felt dizzy and weak. Had I not been kneeling, I felt sure that I would have collapsed onto the cold, hard sheet of marble supporting my knees. The vampire began to stir and opened her eyes just as everything faded to black.
An envelope of unconsciousness descended on me and I fell sideways onto the floor. The last thing I felt was pain as my head hit the marble with a thud.
Chapter 5
Someone was shaking me.
Just a little longer. Just let me sleep a little bit longer.
My head hurt like hell. It wasn’t the mind-numbing pain I’d felt when I died and became a vampire, but just the same it would be nice if the disco pulsating through my head would melt into the slower-paced trippy rhythms of the previous decade. I didn’t want to move, but I didn’t have a choice because someone was shaking me as if they were trying to rouse the dead. Vaguely, that thought amused the hell out of me.
“Holly… Holly, come on, snap out of it.”
“Mmmm…what? Just lemme sleep.” My words slurred on my tongue, which felt thick, almost as if I’d been drugged.
Thirsty.
“Holly, you have to try to open your eyes. But don’t try to sit up…not just yet.”