Overworld Chronicles Books 1-2: Sweet Blood of Mine & Dark Light of Mine (31 page)

One of her hands stroked my hair. The other raked fingernails lightly down my back. She kissed my neck and traced my ear with her tongue. It definitely didn't feel rough. In fact, it felt pretty amazing. Her soft breasts pressed against my chest, and my hand wandered down the curve of her back, reaching her firm bottom and squeezing.

My body reacted, its second brain springing awake in anticipation of ravishing this shapely temptress. I jerked away. What teenage guy worth his salt wouldn't be aroused after kissing like that? But it hadn't been magic. It hadn't burned through my veins with a desire to consume her and make her part of me. Despite the physical allure, her kiss had been but a pale reminder of the fiery earth-shaking touch of true love mingled with a kiss. Whether I had a soul or not, Elyssa affected a part of me beyond the physical and I would never have that with Stacey.

"Why can't I get her out of my mind?" I shouted to the sky in exasperation.

Tears welled in Stacey's large amber eyes. "You are too in love with her," she said. "I even kept myself fully human to make it more comfortable so my tongue would not cause a rash."

"I'm sorry, Stacey. I really am. But I'm willing to make a bargain with you anyway if you'll just help me."

She stood and walked away to stare out into the darkness. "I will not help you, Justin." Her voice quavered and she sniffled. "I suppose I am doomed to never find true love." She pressed the back of a hand to her forehead with a melodramatic flourish.

"Just because we aren't meant to be together doesn't mean we can't mess around."

"But I want you to love me and adore me. I want a man to come home to. Someone I can hug and kiss and laugh with." She started to sob.

I knew exactly what she was talking about. Except I wanted a girl, not a guy, of course. And I would never call a rundown place like this home. I hugged her. She turned and buried her face in my chest.

"Stacey, I want you to be happy. We didn't really get off to a good start, but I'd be willing to do what you want. How about we can, uh, date or whatever for a year, provided I survive this?"

I heard a tiny meowing and looked down to see a small black figure rubbing against my legs. I picked up the familiar feline. "Captain Tibbs!" I said. "I should've known you'd find a better gig."

"You are acquainted?" Stacey asked. She took the little cat and kissed him on the nose. "Do you know this man, little one?"

Captain Tibbs meowed a few times. Stacey looked at me with tenderness in her eyes. She put Captain Tibbs on her shoulder where he took a seat and purred while he licked his front paw.

"I will help you."

"What changed your mind?"

"Nightliss told me how you bravely saved her from the jaws of an evil hound."

With all the other crap that had been going on, I'd almost forgotten about the episode. It seemed so distant with all the other worries in my head. "I couldn't let that dog hurt her." And to think I'd thought she was a he.

Stacey pressed a palm to my cheek. "How heroic of you. You did not even possess your full abilities, did you?"

"No." I gave Captain Tibbs a look. "Why do you call him—I mean her—Nightliss?"

"That would be the English equivalent of what she calls herself. Besides, Captain Tibbs, as you called her, is a rather ridiculous name." She smiled sadly and looked me up and down. "You are a filthy mess and your odor is most disagreeable. Go home and clean up. I will ask other tomcats if they will help you. If they say yes, then they will be the help you receive from me. I expect nothing in return. If I cannot have your love, I will only be miserable in a relationship built on convenience."

It was a very melodramatic and very British way to put things, but it was a better outcome than I'd hoped for.

I kissed her on the cheek and hugged her while Nightliss batted at my ear from her shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you."

"Remember, only those who say yes will help you. It may be none at all."

"I'll take what I can get," I said, wondering how she could ask a cat anything of this nature. Then again, I should be able to believe in anything by now. I scratched the ears of a few nearby cats, discreetly checking if they had the proper parts dangling between their legs. I needed to be on their good side.

"You know the one you love can never love you back," Stacey said in a sad voice. "There is no pain like unrequited love."

I choked up and faced away from her. "Tell me about it."

Chapter 28

I left for home to take Stacey's advice and clean myself. She told me she'd meet me back at her place the following evening. I had driven about a mile when the Jetta sputtered and stopped. I cursed and hit the steering wheel. It took only a second to identify the problem. I was out of gas. With all the supernatural crap hitting the fan around me, I had forgotten the most mundane of things. I didn't know what to do except get out and run home. I'd have to make sure nobody saw my clothes. They looked like I'd come from a slaughterhouse and then gone mud sliding.

The shortest way to my place was to hightail it through Clarkston, an even more rundown part of town. I didn't know any backyard routes so I took to the back streets, hoping I knew where I was going. I ran past closed stores, boarded up homes, and mini-marts with thick bars on the windows. I had just passed the public bus terminal when I heard a faint noise that made me stop in my tracks.

It was the sound of fear. A bottled up scream that might come from a gagged mouth. The wrongness of it struck at my heart and I couldn't resist the pull. I sprinted toward the source, some hundred yards away behind a nearby strip mall. Two young thugs were holding down a girl who couldn't have been any older than I was. Her eyes were wide with terror.

"Let her go," I said before even thinking about it. It was rather stupid considering I didn't know if they had weapons.

The taller of the two turned and immediately confirmed they did indeed have weapons. He held a pistol cocked to the side in typical gangsta fashion. "You best get outta here, fool. You ain't got no business here."

His companion stood behind the girl with a leer on his face. "Sucka don't have a clue, D.J. School him."

"Let her go," I said, mapping out the route which was least likely to get me shot.

The armed thug's finger twitched. I blurred left, as the gunshot popped. I cut right. Grabbed his gun arm, and slammed him in the shoulder. His arm snapped like a twig. I took the gun, gave him a dirty look, and tried to eject the magazine like the badasses do on TV. Unfortunately, I didn't really know what I was doing, so I suffered a moment of awkward confusion while I fiddled with the stupid thing. Finally, I just flicked on the safety.

"What the hell?" said the other thug—the one who wasn't screaming about his broken arm.

"Guess you should've listened," I said, anger growling deep in my throat. Something shifted inside me. Pain exploded in my head and the world went red. Blood rushed to my head in rhythm with the timpani thundering of my heart. My forehead felt like it was cracking open. Like something was growing from it.

The thug screamed at an impossibly high pitch for a man and fled. The girl passed out. The thug with the broken arm was too busy sobbing in white-faced agony to think about running.

I staggered. The pain receded. Faded to nothing. I hadn't had these awful headaches for a few days. Maybe my growing pains as a demon spawn weren't over yet. Whatever the case, aspirin wasn't going to cut it.

I picked up the girl and ran her toward the front of the shopping center where a group of teens were frantically shouting someone's name. Aware of just how bad it would look if a filthy guy walked up with an unconscious girl in his arms, I set her on a nearby bench and hid behind the corner. "Over here," I shouted. I heard their footsteps and exclamations as they saw their friend. Then I was off again.

What a rush.

I took stock of my location and angled for home. It felt amazing to have rescued someone. Despite my low energy levels and the hunger that groaned in my body, I felt energized.

Foolishly, it gave me hope.

I finally arrived at home and stripped off my ruined clothes which I trashed. After a shower I put on some jeans and a black T-shirt, figuring I might as well try to camouflage myself while I reconnoitered the location Shelton had given me in his email. If Stacey came through, I had to be prepared.

Someone knocked on the door. Hope surged. Maybe Dad had escaped. Maybe Shelton had decided to help me. Or it might be Nyte or Ash. I had several missed texts from the two of them.

I looked through the peephole and saw an empty stoop. I turned away. Another knock. I spun back and looked. No one was there. Somebody was playing games. That might be very bad. It could be more vampires or bounty-seeking sorcerers. I peered through the hole once more and a pair of violet eyes stared back at me.

I opened the door without thinking. Elyssa stood there, her eyes neutral rather than filled with hate or disgust. That was a step in the right direction.

"I know about your father," she said.

"How could you possibly know already?"

"My people have an extensive network. Word gets around fast when something goes down in the supernatural world. If I'd known who your father really is I would have also known you're an incubus."

"Oh yeah? Is that better or worse than vampreys and faders?"

"A monstrous soulless leech is still a leech."

"Well, congratulations. One monster down, one to go."

"Oh come off it, Justin. You can't get him back. The vampires who took him are rogues. They split from the Red Syndicate. Any lawful Syndicate member would have turned him in for the bounty, not kept him."

"Why do you say that?" I asked, resisting the incredible urge to kiss those soft lips, fangs or not.

"The Red Syndicate has an official image to uphold in the supernatural community, even when it comes to demon spawn."

"That's funny. I can't believe evil blood-suckers would be worried about their public image. "

"Vampire politics are tricky. They're very aware of which way the wind is blowing. Even if they consider your father a rogue, they'd treat him according to law."

"And what about my father's family? They'd stand by and do nothing?"

"They would, considering they disowned him."

I waved her in. Her eyes grew guarded, but she came in anyway. I noticed she had two short sai swords sheathed on her back. They looked a lot like the ones she'd constructed for Kings and Castles. She wore a black form-fitting shirt and pants that outlined her generous curvy physique. She had a knife on both thighs and a belt with matte-black grenade-looking spheres attached to it. She looked like a ninja goddess.

"Well, aren't you just armed to the teeth?"

"In my line of business it doesn't pay to walk around in my underwear."

Now
that
was a sight I'd like to see. "I have to try to save my dad. You know I can't just leave him."

"There are other avenues to freeing him. We could petition the Overworld Conclave for their intervention."

"You said 'we'. Does that mean your family will help me?"

"Oh, hell no," she said with a shake of her head. "They don't even know I'm here."

"Do they know about me?"

"They're aware of you now, thanks to this hubbub over your dad."

"And?"

"And what? They won't hunt you down if that's what you think. Mom was not exactly happy to find out she styled the hair of an incubus and didn't even know it." Her lips curved into a sad smile.

"That's kind of creepy, now that I think about it," I said. "Finding out your hair dresser is a vampire. Speaking of which, is your family part of the Red Syndicate?"

She grimaced. "No, we're just a family. We're nothing like those creatures."

"Wait a minute. They're creatures but you're not? Hypocrite much?"

She leaned against the back of the couch and narrowed her eyes at me. "Just because a vampire raped one of our ancestors doesn't mean we're anything like them. We do something positive with our abilities. Besides, we're dhampyrs, not vampires."

"Well if you're not a creature because your method of inception was out of your control, then I guess I must be okay too."

She grunted and averted her gaze. "We swore an oath to protect mortals from supernaturals. From leechers like spawn."

"Are you with the supernatural police squad? Should I call you Deputy Elyssa?"

"We're Templars," she growled.

"Like the knights?" I laughed. "You run around killing vampires and demons?"

"It's not like that. We don't go around killing anyone. We simply take care of the outlaws and rogues despite our dislike of…"

"Monsters like me?"

She met that with a protracted sigh. "It's just the way things are."

I paced into the kitchen and grabbed some water. My insides churned with the desire to kiss her, frustration because I couldn't, and the need to feed. "I'm not going to beg a bunch of lousy politicians to help me free my dad. If it works anything like human politics, it'll take forever. No telling what they're doing to him right this moment." I chugged down a glass of water to quench my burning thirst, but it didn't help. It wasn't that kind of thirst. "I already have someone to help me anyway."

"Who?" she said in a scoffing tone. "Your little cat woman? What good will she be?"

"At least she wants to help!" I yelled. I gritted my teeth and lowered my voice to a snarl. "Nobody else gives a damn because they think we're monsters who don't deserve to live in peace. We're blamed for being part of a family I never knew existed until a day ago." The anger fled from me as despair settled in. I groaned and sank into a chair.

She put an arm on my shoulder. I ached to touch her hand. To feel real solace in that touch. But it was an empty gesture.

"Justin, please listen to me. I don't want to see you hurt."

"Says the girl who almost cut my throat."

"No. Says the girl who thinks you're not all bad and don't deserve to die." She removed her hand and stepped in front of me.