Forstaken (5 page)

The cowboy
grinned but reached out his hands in an “I surrender” type gesture.

“Okay, okay. I’m
a vampire, also a private investigator, and I was hired by one ancient bastard
who has been dead set on finding your girl for years. I tracked her down and
reported back that she was shacked up with the son of a sea goddess. That’s it
in a nutshell.”

Byron was
trying to process this information as rapidly as the vampire was firing it off
at him.

“A vampire? A
blood drinking dark soul? I thought you gutter crawlers never came out of the
dark.”

“Obviously,
you were wrong.” Shadee opened his mouth to show his fangs elongate and then
retract.

Byron swallowed.
No time to discuss the absurdity of this exchange now. He needed to find Nadia.

“And this
ancient bastard ordered me dead and for you to bring Nadia to him?”

“That about
sums it up.”

“So you’re
back to finish the job you didn’t complete then?” Byron felt the beginning of a
shift starting in his lower legs. Any strong emotion, from fear to anger, could
force an untimely flux to occur.

The cowboy
shook his head and placed the hat back on his head.

“Nope, I’m
here to make a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Yeah, I want
you to help me kill the oldest and most powerful vampire in existence, and I’ll
take you to where he’s hiding your woman.”

****

The images she
was seeing didn’t make any sense, but the longer Dagger stayed in contact with
her, the more images she regained. It was if the floodgates of her mind had
opened, and her whole life was replaying like a movie showing in fast-forward.

When he
finally removed his hand, she sat there, motionless and staring into his eyes. She
realized then his eyes were just like her own. Those eyes. She saw them in the
mirror every morning.

Her stomach
rolled with a queasiness not to be reckoned with.

“Who are you?”

Dagger smiled
at her.

“Dear girl,
the question is…who are
you
?”

Nadia blinked
slowly at him. Clicking the pieces of the brain puzzle into place with
painstaking clarity.

“You’re my…?”

Dagger smiled
widely at her and held out his arms in an open embrace.

She turned her
head and vomited.

****

“Let me get
this straight. You were hired to find Nadia and return her to this ancient
demon named Dagger for a fifty thousand dollar bounty. Then, when you
discovered who I was, he upped the bounty to five hundred thousand dollars, and
you agreed to snuff me out.”

Shadee was
sitting calmly on Byron’s leather couch with his feet propped on the coffee
table. His head leaned back over the back of the sofa, and he’d placed his hat
over his face as if taking a mid-day snooze.

“Yes. For the
thousandth time, yes!” The vampire was growing impatient, but Byron was trying
to get it worked out.

“Now, you want me to help you
kill this supposed unkillable demon in order to rescue Nadia, but you don’t
want anything from me?”

Shadee lifted
his hat and gave Byron a wink, “Well, if the little lady wants to give me a
little taste I wouldn’t say no.”

With those
words Byron strode across the room in two steps, snatched up the vamp by the
collar, and pressed his face nose to nose with him.

“Let’s get one
thing straight. You won’t ever,
ever
touch her. And if I find out this is some ploy or plot against me, you’ll have
the full wrath of the sea, and no mere vampire can outrun the sea.”

“Okay. Okay,
fish-boy. Chill, man.”

Byron squeezed
his thumbs against Shadee’s neck.

“I’m pretty
sure decapitation still works on vamps, and I’ll guarantee you I could remove
your head with my bare hands if I put my mind to it. Don’t push me, and knock
off the fish-boy crap.”

For the first
time since meeting the doofus cowboy he now knew as Shadee the Vampire PI, Byron
saw a flicker of fear in his glowing, blue eyes. Byron was starting to feel
more like the demigod he was born to be.

This could be
good or bad depending on how you looked at it. On one hand it might give him
the advantage he needed to kill this demon Dagger. He’d have to use everything
he had inside him to pull this off. But if it meant saving Nadia, he’d risk it
all.

Then again,
the more he gave in to his innate powers, the harder it would be to control a
flux. There was no way he’d be able to stop the flux if it turned into a full-on
battle.

“Can you
kindly release me now?” Shadee sputtered.

Byron released
him, and Shadee fell back to the sofa.

Byron paced
the room another time or two and then stopped and glared at Shadee.

“I don’t know
what your angle is, but I have to save her.”

Shadee stood
up and clapped his hands together. “Giddy-up.”

“But there’s
one other problem.” Byron said, checking his watch.

Shadee gave
him a frown but waited for his response.

“I have to
return to the sea by sunrise. We have less than eight hours to pull this off.”

Chapter Eight

Nadia didn’t
trust easily. She’d been only eight years old when her life had been suddenly
uprooted and the course of her future forever changed. All these years, she’d
secretly desired the elusive knowledge of her life before adoption, but all her
memories were missing.

The social
worker she’d seen weekly while in foster care had referred to her memory loss
as a
tpabma,
or trauma guard. Obviously
something tragic or violent had happened to Nadia, and as a result, her brain
had simply shut the door to that time.

She didn’t
know if she believed in the mumbo jumbo, but she did know her life had always
been an unsolvable mystery. It always kept her on guard, and only in recent
years had she begun to truly let go and live a seemingly normal life.

It might have had something – or
everything – to do with Byron coming into her life. With him, she felt
indescribably safe and incredibly loved. She wished in this moment she could
speak with him. He was the calm, rational thinker, and she was the emotional
one. And boy, did she have a plethora of emotions screaming inside her right
now.

Dagger had
left the room momentarily, and she was glad for a brief reprieve from his
hopeful but still slightly frightening smile. She wondered if he’d just needed
to get away from vomit girl.

She stood
against the far wall now, right where that creature named Shadee had been
earlier. Now, as if it were the most normal revelation in the world, she knew
he was a vampire. She also knew she came from a family of vampires, but that
she wasn’t one. She didn’t understand any of this. Everything was still a
little fuzzy, and every time she tried to recall all those images Dagger had
brought forth in her, she felt another wave of sickness envelop her.

She raised her
arms above her head and slowly walked the length of the room. Slow, deep
breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

As her stomach
began to settle, her thoughts settled around her as well. She needed to get out
of here and find Byron. She needed to discuss this new information with the
only person she could truly trust.

But how would
she go about getting Dagger to let her out? He seemed thrilled at the
announcement that he’d found his long, lost niece. She wasn’t so sure it was
good news, but she guessed she’d brought this all down on herself. If only she
had just remained happy and content with her new life none of this would be
happening. Maybe she had been better off not knowing the truth.

Dagger
returned a few minutes later looking a lot less cheerful.

“We need to
go. Now.”

****

“I swear. They
were here, and I have no clue where they could have gone.”

Byron eyed
Shadee with no lack of suspicion. “How convenient. Why do I feel like I’m
wasting my last night on land doing some wild goose chase with a lousy vampire?
I must find Nadia before sunrise.”

Shadee
scratched his chin with pale, slender fingers.

“I hear ya. I
know. I know. Or else you turn into sushi.”

Byron took a
threatening step toward him, and the cowboy waved him off.

“Sorry. I
promised to stop the fish jokes. Let me think.”

“Oh, that
sounds like a promising venture.” Byron surveyed the dank cellar, and his heart
panged with grief over the fact that Nadia had spent even a few hours in this
hell hole. It was bare and cold, and there was something that smelled like
vomit all over the floor in one corner. What was this place, and why had this
demon named Dagger brought her here?

Was he really
after Byron? And was he using Nadia as bait? He and Shadee had discussed it on
the car ride over here, but the vampire had claimed to know little about Dagger’s
plans with her.

The only thing he had known was
that Nadia had been searching for her adoption records for a few years and had
finally found some paperwork in her adoptive family’s safety deposit box a
couple of years ago, just after they had passed away in a sudden car crash. That
was when she’d learned her true last name was Baranova and had applied for a
legal name change with the court. He guessed it was her way of trying to feel a
part of her past, to hold on to a long lost link.

Byron hadn’t
been so sure of the cowboy’s psychological analysis, but he understood now how
easy it had been for the investigator to track her down. The court records of
her name change would have been public record.

After a search
of the building on both levels, they finally agreed that Dagger had moved Nadia
to a different location, and they were back at square one. Byron checked his
watch again. Fewer than six hours to go.

“What now,
Sherlock?”

Shadee seemed
contemplative as he stood at the driver’s side of his car, arms propped on the roof.

“There is
someone who might help us, but it’ll cost you.”

“Cost me
what?”

Shadee
cackled.

“Money, of
course.”

Byron shrugged
and slid into the passenger side of the two door coupe. The cowboy returned to
his behind the wheel position and fired the engine to life.

“Money, I’ve
got. Time is what I’m running low on.”

“That’s what I
like to hear,” Shadee said as he sped toward the highway.

****

“I really
would rather go home. Get a shower. Get changed. I need some time to think. I
need to talk to my boyfriend first.” Nadia pled with her new found relative as
he watched her from the backseat of the custom limo.

She’d never
ridden in a limo and would normally be enjoying something of such luxury. Only
now, on this long night, she longed for the simple apartment furnishings she
shared with Byron. She longed for his warm embrace, he scruffy-faced kisses and
the sheer bliss of being once again ignorant of the scariness of the world.

“You don’t
need to go there. To see
him
. He’s
not right for you. He’s not your kind. I’ll take care of you.”

Nadia’s chest
tightened against her short breaths.

“What kind am
I?”

Dagger peered
at her as if wanting her to snap to it. Get with the program already, his unsympathetic
look screamed.

Nadia waited, breathless
with anticipation. She feared the truth, but at the same time longed to hear it
said out loud, needed to hear the words spoken.

Dagger seemed
unconcerned with her distress-filled question. He took a moment to examine his
well-manicured fingertips and took a sip of some dark, thick burgundy colored
liquid. Nadia was scared to ask about it, but the metallic smell already told
her more than she wanted to know.