Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) (28 page)

Jade called her father for the use of his private jet so I could travel with weapons. Going through airport security with a gun, bowie knife, and Midnight Ash’s katana would’ve been difficult. I also didn’t want my name on any plane manifest list. I didn’t want the board tying me to anything that happened in New York and through me, Patrick. As far as anyone knew I was Jade.

I sat in a hired car, watching the skyscrapers and billboards of New York City pass me by as we crossed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. I couldn’t think about any it. All of my thoughts were focused on Arthur. Darshan would come second. The plane’s scheduled return flight plan had us stopping over in Pittsburgh. I was scared out of my mind but vengeance and rage drove me beyond the fear.

The car stopped in front of a building that was glass from top to bottom. The sun beamed in every damned window.

The driver opened my door and I stepped out into the sun. As the city around me moved, the ominous click of my heels on pavement was the only sound that reached my ears. I wore a pair of black slacks that hid my calf sheath on my right leg and a pair of red three-inch heels. I wore a crisp white dress shirt and a red patent leather belt that was about four inches wide. My shoulder holster was strapped on underneath my leather jacket, Midnight Ash’s katana was strapped down my back beneath the leather jacket, and silver stakes were tucked into my belt at my back. I glanced down at the address on the slip of paper and up at the building to double-check. It was the right place.

I took the express elevator to the 112
th
floor, the top floor, and in only a matter of seconds the doors opened to a large reception area with a desk along the far wall.

The woman sitting behind the desk seemed pale, weak. Her aura of power floated about her like a spritz of mist. The room was too bright. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, catching her whole body in the bright rays of the afternoon sun. The power I sensed had to be coming from somewhere else. If she was a vampire, she should’ve burst into flames.

The woman smiled up at me with a flash of fang as I approached.
Something strange is going on here. Definitely vampire, definitely in the sunlight.
I smiled back. It couldn’t hurt to be polite as I tried to go unnoticed.

“Hello, can I help you?” she asked, her accent was that easy combination of German and English, the same woman we’d spoken to on the phone.

“I’d like to see Arthur,” I said with my best winning smile. She didn’t question me or ask who I was. Maybe she thought I was lunch.
I bet they had their meals delivered in. They couldn’t really leave, could they?

She got to her feet and motioned for me to follow her.

“How do you stay in the sun?” I asked.

She turned a hungry smile to me.

“UV-tinted glass and a bit of Fae magic,” she answered as she licked her lips and smiled just big enough to flash her fangs. She meant it to be menacing but it was amateur. I’d killed much, much worse.

She knocked on the door.

“Come on in,” a male voice bellowed jovial and almost cordial from the other side of the door.

The receptionist opened the large oak door and waited for me to pass before she closed the door behind me, enclosing me in like a tomb.

My entire being felt empty and cold as I met the eyes of the man in front of me. He sat behind a very large, light-colored maple desk almost half the size of the room. He was attractive, not the pudgy, gray-haired cowboy I’d imagined. He appeared as if he’d been turned in his twenties. He had blond hair and hazel eyes that looked too much like Danny’s. I remembered Danny’s eyes filled with light and laughter. Something in the pit of my stomach hardened.

Arthur’s face was soft and seemed like it hadn’t been touched by the troubles of the world. But I had. Danny had.

I took a step forward and felt the push of something else to my right. I whipped my head around to face a very large black man with shoulders broader than the chair he was sitting in. He watched me. His eyes were dark and his skin was even darker. His hair fell in long braids over his shoulders, hiding the large scar of a brand on his neck. He glared at me as if I were interrupting.

An older man in torn jeans and familiar salt-and-pepper hair sat on the man’s right. Garret. He eyed me but kept his face neutral.

I was outnumbered and unsure where Garrett stood. I’d find out soon enough.

“Why, darlin’, you’re early,” Arthur said with a warm, welcoming smile. He really did think I was lunch. Wouldn’t he be surprised?

“Actually, I’m late,” I said, stepping into the center of the room. I moved like the predator that I’d become, light and sure. The peace of the kill had settled over me and I knew my eyes were empty as I met his gaze. I stood before his desk, my hands free and ready to draw. I wanted to get closer. I wanted him to know who was about to kill him.

“What’re you talkin’ about, honey?” he asked. His smile faded a fraction with each step I took toward him. “I didn’t expect anyone for another hour.”

“You said you wanted to meet me,” I said, a coy little smile making my expression hard. I circled his desk with long careful strides, sashaying my hips in my own self-assured strut. His eyes dropped, watching my hips swish like I’d distracted him with a shiny object.

I stood within an arm’s stretch of him. His power was immense, caressing me like cold satin, wrapping me in its silky restraints until I was almost choked by it. My flesh tingled down to the bone as the weight of his power filled the room, sensual and obscene, making me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Amazing, inviting, intoxicating, and dangerous.

His brow furrowed and a question shone in his eyes. He stood from the high-backed leather chair and held out his hand to me.

I took it. Everything was so cordial, so civilized.

“If you say so, darlin’. I didn’t have you on my schedule for today,” he said with a smile. “But it’s a pleasant surprise. You are a pretty one,” he said, pulling away just a bit, enough to lean back and take a really good look at me. “What can I do for you?” he asked with that million-dollar smile.

“Midnight Ash is dead,” I answered, my tone flat.

He stopped, still, as if the world moved around him.

Darshan jumped to his feet behind me. His power moved like a chilled wind through Arthur’s cold satin. For a heartbeat, everything was as still as death.

Fear lurked behind Arthur’s eyes, making his hazel eyes shine with it. He sat, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest. His eyes lightened and the smile he’d graced me with when I entered was suddenly unsure. He whistled in a long, slow, descent as his eyes traveled over me from head to toe and back again.

Garret’s warmth shifted as he slid on the couch, positioning himself behind Darshan. I felt it like hot water running over an ice cube. His power surrounded Darshan and neither of them even knew it. Neither of them could feel it, and I smiled to myself.

“That is impressive,” Arthur congratulated. “I didn’t really think you’d make it. But I shouldn’t have doubted Patrick. He’s clever, that one. And a survivor, ya know.”

“You and Darshan are next on my list,” I said, ignoring his remark.

His face fell. The expression on his face seemed like I’d struck him. His eyes darted behind me.

A prickle of anxiety snaked over my scalp, raising the tiny hair at the base of my neck. I could smell my fear and theirs. Garret probably could, too. Good. I wanted Arthur and Darshan afraid, to suffer.

Arthur moved quickly, but he wasn’t quick enough. The shift in his power moved before him like a curtain, grabbing my arm instead of my neck.

I’d surprised him again, moving faster than he’d expected. Hell, faster than I’d expected.

Darshan jumped, but Garrett was there to hold him back in his tight bear hug.

“How did you do that?” Arthur asked through clenched teeth. His eyes narrowed on me like a hawk on a mouse. I didn’t like being the mouse. I would never be the mouse again, not if I could help it. His nostrils flared as he took in my scent. I watched his eyes widen as my essence filled his nose. “You smell of old magic,” he whispered.

“Ancient,” I snarled back at him. I shoved my own power out, letting him feel everything I’d been holding back. I’d discovered that my power had weight, was tangible if I concentrated hard enough. That weight could be moved. So, I moved it over him.

“It’s not possible,” he snarled through clenched teeth as his grip tightened on my arm. “Fertiri!”

I snatched a silver stake from my belt and jabbed it into the back of his neck.

Blood spouted from the wound in a cascade of crimson, like a fountain. He drew back from me, stumbling as he grasped at the stake protruding from his flesh. He hit his chair with unsteady legs and fell to his knees, clutching at the desk.

“Arthur!” Darshan screamed.

I thought I heard actual pain in his voice. Good.

I pulled another silver stake from the belt at my back and jammed it unceremoniously into his right eye socket. The pop of his eyeball as it exploded jolted my hand as the stake sank deep into his sinuses.

He screamed out, filling the office with the sound of his anguish. A validating sense of pleasure filled me. I had crossed a line and I knew it, torturing him in retribution for Danny. I didn’t care.

I drew the katana from the sheath down my back. The sound of the steel grazing against the leather sent an electric shiver up my spine, masking the sounds of Arthur’s whimpers. He tried to crawl toward the door. He caught sight of Midnight Ash’s katana in my hand and scurried out of my reach.

I followed him back around the desk, looking for justice—for vengeance. Arthur crawled across the floor in front of Garret who still held Darshan tight against him. Darshan struggled to get to his maker but he wasn’t stronger than Garret. He never had been.

“Danny didn’t deserve to die,” I said, my voice calm and too cold to be sane. “I won’t let you harm Patrick.” I kicked Arthur, turning him over with my foot and lowered the katana to his heart in front of his good eye. I wanted him to follow the gleaming silver blade down to the middle of his chest. I wanted him to see his death coming.

A shiver ran through him then up the katana, vibrating gently through my hand. He turned his good hazel eye to me as he propped himself up on his elbows. He finally saw me, and the monster beneath.

“I wanted Darshan to have what had been taken from him,” he explained.

I might have understood once, but now I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was me and mine.

“Your power. What is that glow?” he asked in a disbelieving voice.

“I am the Blushing Death.” A snarl of satisfaction curled my lips as I shoved the katana into his chest until the blade pierced completely through. The smell of burnt flesh filled my nose as the silver blade burned him from the inside out. I twisted the blade about 90 degrees as his flesh burned around the silver blade. I yanked the sword out of his body, twisting. Light filtered through the hole I’d made in his chest. He dropped back onto the floor without a sound. The blood flowed from his body and soaked into the floor.

I made one last swift downward strike and cut off his head. I cleaned the sword off on Arthur’s very expensive suit, wiping the blade with his jacket as Arthur slowly crumbled into a pile of dirty gray ash coating a sticky pool of blood.

“What have you done?” Darshan growled, still struggling in Garret’s grip.

“Let him go,” I ordered in a deep husky voice that sounded foreign even to my ears.

“Dean won’t like that I stood by and did nothing,” Garret said.

“Let him go.”

Garret shrugged and released the hold he had around Darshan’s shoulders.

Darshan didn’t hesitate before he leapt at me.

I swung the katana up into the air, slicing his gut open as I stepped to the side. The vampire’s insides dropped, his organs falling and dangling from his body in a heavy undistinguishable glob of gore. He fell to the ground beside the pile of ash that had once been Arthur in a heap of flesh, his large and small intestines hung like streamers from his body.

Darshan screamed in frustration and anguish as he shoved his insides back in. I went over to him and jammed my foot on his chest, pushing him back down to the blood-soaked floor.

His dark eyes met mine as he snarled at me. “I’ll have my revenge for this, for everything,” he hissed at me.

I gripped the katana tighter in my right hand, wringing my hands around the handle as I narrowed my eyes on him.

“No, you won’t.”

I shoved my heel through his flesh, sinking the stiletto between his ribs and into his heart. He gasped. His whole body contracted the moment my heel punctured the tough muscle of his heart. I brought the katana above my head and swung down, severing his head and spinal cord from his body in one, clean stroke. His dark eyes widened in horror for only a moment before his body shriveled and pulled in on itself into a dehydrated shell.

I turned on Garret.

He threw his hands up in the air and took a step back.

“Whoa, honey, I’m on your side.”

I nodded and glared at what was left of them. I should’ve felt guilty at what I’d done. I shouldn’t relish the kill but I stared down at their wasted carcasses and was proud. That was a problem for a different day.

I sauntered into the adjacent bathroom and studied my reflection in the mirror. There was blood on my red leather jacket. I ran the warm water, taking a paper towel or two and cleaned my jacket. There was a spot of blood on the collar of my white shirt. As I stared into the mirror and evaluated the blood, a small, satisfied smile crept across my face. I turned and left, without cleaning up the spot.

“You have to get out of here,” Garret said from the doorway.

“What about you?”

“Stab me,” he said.

“Where?”

“Gut, the soft tissue, preferably. It heals easier.”

I took a step back with the katana in my hand and thrust it through his stomach, sinking it through his body near his kidney until it reached through to the other side.