Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) (25 page)

“Kurt, take Jade back to Dahlia’s and check the system,” Dean ordered.

Kurt nodded and turned to Jade.

My house was the safest place for her. Without my permission, no vampires could cross the threshold. Unless, of course, I was dead.

“But . . .” Jade argued as Kurt tugged on her arm and escorted her from the room before she could protest too loudly.

“Thank you,” I mouthed to Dean silently. He nodded without turning his gaze from mine. My entire body tingled in warm waves under his evaluating gaze and the scorching heat of his power. I knew that power. My mind raced, looking for recognition it couldn’t find.

Patrick and Alex arrived, only moments apart from each other. Patrick sat behind his desk and glared at Simon Tacoma with a dissection that would have made me falter. Simon Tacoma, however, made no indication of unease.

“Who are you?” Patrick asked as his eyes narrowed on the man. He folded his fingers in front of his face like a steeple and pressed his full lips against his index fingers. The intense look in his eyes and that pose of complete authority made things low in my body tighten.

“Simon Tacoma,” he answered. A small smile crept across his lips. “Servant to Middonaitoshoo Asshu.”

Patrick’s eyes widened in horror.

Something was wrong.

Patrick jumped up from his chair and grabbed me hard by the arm, yanking me up from the desk. Dean stepped forward and I could have sworn that I heard a soft growl fill his throat. Patrick pulled me to the far corner of the room and away from everyone else, dragging me behind him. Dean and Danny followed. Alex decided to wait and watch our captive.

“What have you done?” Patrick hissed at me. “You’ve signed our death warrant.”

I gawked at him in disbelief.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped.

“It’s forbidden under penalty of death to harm another vampire’s human servant,” he hissed, looking past me to Simon Tacoma, sitting patiently, still handcuffed to the chair. His jaw was pretty much broken and missing some teeth but he gave no indication that it bothered him.

I ripped my arm from Patrick’s tight grasp. “What the hell is wrong with you? There’s already a death warrant out on my ass.” My face flushed and my voice dropped and octave or two. “I’m sorry if Mr. Tacoma’s being her servant has inconvenienced you but we’re fighting for our lives here, or have you forgotten that?” I growled through clenched teeth.

Dean cleared his throat. “Pat, cut her some slack.”

“I tried so hard to leave those old customs and rituals behind me. If one of those damned archaic laws comes back to bite me,” Patrick snapped and then glared at the rest of us, “I mean
us
in the ass, I swear I’ll . . .” Patrick shook his head.

“You’ll what?” Simon Tacoma asked with goading sarcasm.

“I’ll turn her loose,” Patrick snapped, pointing to me.

“Pat,” Alex said, stepping up and placing her hand on Patrick’s shoulder, drawing his attention away from Simon Tacoma’s mocking tone. “You’ve made this city safe but we need the old ways and the new. Some will come that haven’t changed in centuries. Would you ignore them? No, you’re better than that. You’re more intelligent than that.”

“What do we do with him?” Danny asked with a touch of naïveté that made my heart sink.

I glanced from Danny to Dean and then to Patrick. Dean and Patrick both had the same look of dismay on their faces.

“He dies,” I answered. “And so will Midnight Ash if I have anything to say about it.” A twinge in my gut and a prickling feeling along my skin made me shiver. Something wasn’t right. I stepped away from them. I needed to distinguish one power signature from the other.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

I needed space to feel and separate their energies. Alex’s power was behind me like a sharp, cold knife grazing my skin. Patrick was a cool wind before a midnight storm. Danny was like a warm afternoon, whereas Dean was a fire engulfing me . . . familiar and safe. I knew his power.

Something else was out there. Something that felt different from all the rest. Farther away but growing in intensity with each passing second. Cold, frigid, piercing, and jolting all at the same time, like jumping in the Arctic.

I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “Something’s com—”

The power crashed through the ceiling along with six vampires. They dropped through the building’s cement ceiling with the force of an explosion. Everything happened so fast that I couldn’t take it all in. My heart slammed to my throat.

The cement blocks, as well as the six vampires and their power, hit the office floor with a boom that silenced everything else. A cinder block crashed into my arm just before the floor gave way. Everything and everyone fell. A second of free fall made me weightless and everything went silent except the beat of my heart in my ears. We tumbled to the dance floor in a shower of broken glass, cinder blocks, and support beams. I screamed in pain as I crashed the dance floor hard on my side and bounced once maybe twice . . . I don’t remember. The air rushed from my lungs, burning. I couldn’t breathe. My entire body ached as the world came back into focus.

I hesitated for a moment as I tried to catch my breath and take in the room. My gun had been on the desk. It was somewhere in the rubble of the wood, glass, and metal on the other side of the dance floor now. I pushed myself up off the floor on trembling hands and arms. My body felt heavy like a car was strapped to my back.

Alex was already up and circling a small man dressed in black from head to toe, his face hidden behind a mask of black fabric. They stalked a wide circle in tandem, evaluating each other, before he pulled a long curved sword from the sheath down his back. The steel of the katana glistened in the light from the room above us.

Shit, we’re in trouble.

Alex growled in a ferocious threat of violence. I’d never heard that sound come from her lips. The reverberation of her snarls sent shivers up my spine. The ninja seemed unimpressed. I lost Alex in the blur of black that passed before my eyes.

I steadied myself and turned to face the vampire coming fast as lighting at me. He slammed into me, dead square in the chest and I lost all lung capacity. He knocked me off my feet. I grabbed his clothing and sank my heels into his stomach before I crashed into the floor again, flat on my back. I pushed him off of me in a smooth judo move that surprised even me. He didn’t go far but he went far enough for me to grab my bowie knife from my boot.

The vampire leapt and was on me again before I could stand up or catch my breath. He forced my shoulders down, slamming me into the ground and debris as he clamped his iron jaw to my collarbone.

The bits of cinderblock and glass dug into my back as his teeth sunk into my flesh. Every millimeter of fang burned as they sank deeper into me.

I screamed in pain and frustration, unable to keep it all in as he tore my flesh away, snapping my clavicle like a twig under the pressure of his bite. I shivered as my body grew cold and the warm wash of my own blood covered my chest, coating my hair, my clothes, and the ground beneath me. I could actually feel my life start to slip away. An odd chilling sensation that resonated from the pit of my stomach all the way down to my toes overtook me. I refused to die like this. This stupid second-rate goon motherfucker was not going to kill me. Not here and not now.

I tightened my grip on the knife in my right hand and brought it down straight into the vampire’s back. I didn’t even care where I plunged the tip in. I just wanted him to hurt as badly as I did and to let go of me.

He unlatched his jaw from my shoulder as I stabbed him again and again, anywhere I could sink my knife in until he rolled off of me. The smell of burning flesh filled my nose from each and every stab wound I inflicted. A satisfied little smile pushed my lips up.

He rocked back and forth, groaning as blood seeped from his back. I got to my knees, shaking and dizzy. I yanked the samurai sword strapped to his back from its sheath. He snapped back when he heard the sound of his own sword being drawn in a long, slow metallic whistle above his ear. He rolled onto his back, fear finally filling his eyes.

I held the sword above my head for a breath. A smile brightened my face but my eyes felt empty and my body cold. It was finally quiet in my mind. I felt nothing. There was no fear anymore, no pain, no compassion, and no hesitation. There was just me. Just the kill.

I brought the sword down with all my strength. The pull of the torn muscles and my broken collarbone screamed through my body, sending bolts of anguish through me as I slammed the sword through his neck, severing his head from the rest of his body. The sword smashed into the floor with a clink of steel on stone as his blood flew in a spray across my face.

I took a deep breath but I wasn’t done. I grabbed my knife from the floor and drove it up into his chest, through his heart from underneath his sternum. In the blink of an eye, the vampire’s body erupted in a cloud of beautiful, sparkling midnight-blue ash that filled the air like a fine mist.

I got to my feet with the vampire’s katana in one hand and my knife in the other. Dean held off two ninjas on his own. He had one by the long, silky black ponytail of her hair, swinging her about to keep her off her feet while he fought off the other one. Patrick struggled with a man who was more skilled than he but Patrick was fighting like a schoolyard bully and the ninja didn’t know how to counter. Danny was going toe-to-toe with Midnight Ash herself.

She’s playing with him. What’s he waiting for?
Danny was stronger in his werewolf form.
His shift is liquid and quick. He could pull it off. He could.

“Shift,” I screamed.

Midnight Ash peered up at me with a smirk in her eyes as she turned the corners of her thin demented lips upward. Time slowed to a crawl as she twisted back to Danny and drew her arm back for the strike. At that moment, everything moved into fast-forward as the flash of her pale hand entered Danny’s chest.

Danny stopped. Stopped moving, stopped breathing, and stopped blinking. He just . . . stopped.

His face froze in horror and his breath caught in a gasp in his throat as she clutched his heart inside his chest.

Midnight Ash laughed. Her shrill cackle filled the club and my ears with her delight. Adrenaline swept through me, flashing hot, then cold. Gooseflesh rose all over my body and a wave of nausea crawled into my stomach as her hand disappeared into his chest. The heavy thump of my heart pounding in my ears was the only sound as I remembered to breathe.

She ripped Danny’s heart from his body in a violent seizure of blood, flesh, and gore. Blood oozed from Danny’s open chest and he collapsed to his knees in a thump of limp, dead flesh. He fell to the floor, smooth and boneless, crumpling in a heap at her feet.

I stared openmouthed at Midnight Ash, covered in Danny’s blood up to her elbow as she held his heart in her hands.

That didn’t just happen. I’m dreaming. That didn’t just FUCKING happen!

Dean stopped moving even before he saw Danny crumpled on the floor like a dirty rag, covered in blood. Danny’s power dissipated then vanished, leaving a hole, a vacuum where his life had once been.

I thought for one sick moment that I saw Danny’s heart beat one last time in her clutches. I couldn’t be sure.

I tightened my grip on the sword, the tip of the katana dragging along the floor as I stumbled forward as if in a dream.

Dead, Danny is dead.

She killed ours,
she howled in my mind.

Dean still held a ninja by the hair as he focused on Danny’s body. She took advantage of his preoccupation, leaping onto his back. She clamped her arms and legs around him, pressing her body against his as she sank her fangs into his neck.

Dean howled. A horrible sound filled with more sorrow than pain. His eyes flashed that crystal Caribbean blue and he flung the vampire from him. His skin shimmered, then morphed, replaced by sleek, shining, silver fur.

I turned.

Dean could handle himself.

My focus was all for the vampire in front of me.

Midnight Ash stalked toward me, slowly, with her sword in one hand and Danny’s heart in the other.

“I told you they couldn’t protect you,” she said, sneering at me. Anticipation lit her dead eyes with delight.

I was numb from the pain in my shoulder, my broken clavicle, and the shock of Danny in a heap on the ground. She couldn’t intimidate me anymore. I’d already lost.

A deep, dangerous growl resonated around me in a vicious guttural threat, making the hair on my neck stand on end. A blood-curdling scream followed as Dean bit down, tearing through the flesh of the second vampire he’d been fighting.

“I don’t need them to protect me,” I bit out. “I’ll kill you myself, you FUCKING BITCH.” I shoved my essence outward, letting her feel whatever power or magic or whatever the hell it was that I had. She didn’t flinch but the smile she gave me was less sure. That was something. I’d scared the big bad ninja vampire a little. A little was enough. I could work with a little.

She came at me like a flash of blue lighting with her sword gleaming above her head, reflecting the light from the few still functioning fluorescents hanging around the edges of the ceiling. I struggled to get my sword up in time to block her stroke. I’d almost missed it.

The blow came down on my arm like a sledgehammer; she was so strong that as our swords clashed, she almost broke my arm. Force from her blow reverberated through the bones in my arm and up my shoulder. The clink of meeting steel echoed in the vast space of the dance floor. In my mind, Midnight Ash and I were the only two in the room. Everything and everyone else disappeared. All I could see were her increasingly quick stokes. She inched me back step-by-step with each strike until I was up against the bar.

My foot hit something on the floor and I stumbled into the hard edge of the bar, sinking to the floor. When my ass crashed down on the floor, the decapitated head of the vampire I’d killed rocked between my feet.

Midnight Ash glared down at me with laughing eyes as her grip tightened around the handle of her katana.

My pulse raced in my head as panic finally set it.

She’s going to kill me.

There wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.

NO!
she screamed through my mind.
She
wasn’t ready to give up yet. I wasn’t either.

Midnight Ash snickered at me as she stared at the heart in her hand. “It’s a shame, really,” she said as she dug her fingernails into the flesh of Danny’s heart, squeezing the tissue as blood oozed between her small fingers.