Sunset to Sunrise (10 page)

I didn’t want to do it. Not really. Not since Shya uttered those painful words. Join her fucking empire. It nagged at me, adding depth to the void that grew every night.

Phillip had taken off on foot, which meant he likely wasn’t going far. There was a sour stench associated with his residual energy. Fear. Well at least he wasn’t a total idiot. He knew his mistake was going to catch up to him.

Tracking him was almost too easy. I followed his lingering essence to the busy intersection on the corner. He’d gone west. Simple enough. If he were smart, he would have gotten off the street and fled by car. Though that would only slow me down for a while.

When I found him at a noisy sports bar, he was sitting in a corner of the lounge alone, furiously barking into his cell phone.

“We have to deal with Sinclair first. I didn’t anticipate this kind of setback either. So get off my case and figure something out.” Phillip ended the call with a scowl that turned to shock at my arrival.

I slid into the booth beside him, trapping him against the wall. He slumped, recognizing this moment for what it was. Vengeance.

“Who were you talking to, Phillip? I’m going to kill you anyway so you might as well tell me. Was it Rebecca?” Without laying a hand on him, I wrapped his energy in mine, bending it to my will.

He grunted, a pained sound that was accompanied by the bulging of his eyes. “Leave Rebecca out of this. She was following my lead. She’s no threat to Alexa without me.”

“Those are mighty proud words for a low level scum like you.” I turned up the heat, slapping Phillip with another hit of power. His anguished howl brought me grim satisfaction. “I’m sure I don’t need to go over this again. I have to make sure your little rebellion doesn’t survive another night. That means taking you out, bud.”

Phillip’s wide eyes rolled my way. Anger flashed in their depths. “Do what you gotta do then and be done with it.”

Using my power to pin him against the wall, I withdrew the stake from my jacket. “I’m sorry it has to go down this way. I have to make it clear to the vampires in this city that nobody fucks with Alexa.”

“So you’re happy to settle for being her slave then,” he nodded as if he knew it all. “Better you than me.”

I plunged the stake into his chest, driving it home, deep into his heart. Phillip’s mouth gaped open, and he emitted a strangled sound before bursting into a cloud of dust.

“Yeah,” I mumbled to the sandy pile on the seat beside me. “Better me than you.”

Picking up his phone from the tabletop, I scrolled through to find the last number he had called. As I’d suspected, it was Rebecca.

I listened to it ring as I waited for her to answer. It was best to do it this way. If we had another face-to-face encounter, I’d likely kill her.

“What the fuck do you want now?” She answered with a snarl. “It’s only been five minutes since your last bitch session.”

I chuckled, enjoying the moment of hesitance on the line when she realized it wasn’t Phillip on the phone.

“Settle down, Rebecca,” I said. “Phillip can’t hassle you anymore.”

“You killed him? That was fast.” There was a note of disbelief in her voice. “Look, Kale, I swear I have no ill intent toward anyone. It was all Phillip. He was so sure Arys and Alexa would make us all slaves. I never believed it. I’m no danger to them. I promise.”

I remained silent for a moment, long enough to stir her panic. Only after she shouted my name did I speak again. “You won’t get another chance if I find out otherwise,” I declared. “How many others are there?”

“I’m not sure. You killed most of them. A few maybe.”

“Spread the word that Phillip is dead, and I’m acting as Alexa’s second. Nobody gets to her without having to go through me as well.”

“Got it. No problem. Whatever you say.” Rebecca was much too concerned with pleasing me. I knew I’d gotten quite a reputation for being less than sane these days, but had it really gotten so bad that even other vampires were wary?

I hung up, having nothing more to say. I slipped Phillip’s phone into my pocket with the intent to destroy it later. No sense leaving it for a human to find. There could be any number of things on it that should not be seen by human eyes.

Scanning the sports bar, I found myself hungry for escape. I returned to The Wicked Kiss but did not go inside. Fetching my car, I instead went downtown, to the side streets nobody dared to visit unless they were seeking out the unsavory. It was where Alexa went when seeking a kill that would ease her guilt. I however had no guilt. So why was I there?

Some kills were careful, precise and expertly executed. Others were impulsive and random, a savage attack that left the victim unidentifiable. The latter sounded awfully good right now.

A pimp stood beneath the streetlight outside a filthy, rundown bar. In one hand, he held a cigar, in the other, the arm of a young woman trembling in fear. She was already so scared. So tempting.

As I walked down the street toward them, I clung to the shadows. I didn’t want to be seen yet. Conscious thought dissipated. Hunger guided my steps. The scent of fear was tantalizing, seducing me with the promise of blood and death.

The girl was the one I wanted. She smelled fucking fabulous whereas the man at her side reeked of cheap cologne and even cheaper cigars. It wasn’t her I grabbed though.

Appearing from the darkness, one of many monsters walking these streets, I grabbed the pimp around the throat and jerked him close. Staring into his bloodshot eyes, I saw my reflection. Fangs bared, expression of crazed delight, I looked very much like the monster from tales of old.

There was no romanticism, no beauty to what I was or what I was about to do. My victim never justified it, not for a second. It was pure evil.

It didn’t matter if there were witnesses. Nobody would speak a word of what they saw. That was how it worked in these parts. Those who kept their mouths shut stayed alive longer than those who talked.

I bit into the pimp with such viciousness his blood spattered my face. His cigar fell to the ground, forgotten and drenched in gore. My attack was brutal, driven by a need for release that was only temporarily satisfied.

The girl ran, and I reached to stop her. Despite his attempt to sell her on the streets, the pimp flung himself between her and me. She pulled free and took off down the street, her screams echoing all around us.

He’d waited too late to show humanity. His bravado came too late to pretend he was something he was not. I wasn’t fooled for a moment by my victim’s protective action. He was a dirt bag, and he would die like one.

I bit him again, opening up an artery in a scarlet gush. The acrid aroma of his terror tickled me in unseen places. His fear was heady, a palpable entity that I drank down along with his blood. My entire body thrummed with the potency of his terror. There was nothing else quite like it. It lifted me up to a place I never wanted to come down from, a place where emotion ceased to exist. Where nothing existed but my victim and me.

Too soon it was over. I stood over his fallen body, watching the last spurts of blood paint the sidewalk a dark, murky red. Blood stained my hands. My face and clothing were spattered with it.

I turned to find one lone person watching me from a nearby bus shelter. An old man, with grocery bags in hand, stared at me with an expression so carefully neutral I had to be impressed. Especially since he stunk of panic.

There was most definitely a moment where I considered going for him next. I even took a step toward him. Then he spoke to me, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Thank you,” he stammered, pointing with a grocery bag-laden hand at the pimp on the ground. “That bastard has been selling girls around here as young as my granddaughter. Lord knows the law won’t deal with him properly. Somebody had to. Good on you.”

What the fuck? I backed away, unable to tear my eyes from this man who so boldly thanked me for an act of violence and evil. It didn’t make any sense how someone could look upon me in my element and find something good in my maniacal actions. It made sense that Alexa hunted in these parts. The place was so dark and so filled with foul people that a monster like me appeared to be good.

There was no stopping the violent surge of anger and hatred that came upon me. By the time I reached my Camaro, I had thrown a mailbox through the window of an abandoned building and punched out two guys fighting outside a massage parlor. I revved the engine a few times before peeling away. Turning the music up, I opened the window and let the evening breeze cool me.

My phone rang. It was Jez. I ignored it. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to her. She didn’t call back or leave a message so it couldn’t have been that important.

For a long time I just drove. Eventually I would have to retire to either my home or The Wicked Kiss. Until then, I would drive. I couldn’t count the many nights I had driven aimlessly around the city, waiting for the dawn’s first rays to peek over the horizon. It was all I could do to keep myself occupied these days. On nights like this, I wondered if it wouldn’t have been best for me to remain in the FPA lockup.

Chapter Seven

I stared at the list of addresses and adjusted the fedora perched on my head. Every building on Shya’s list was either old, elaborate or both. It seemed a tad presumptuous to me, but hey, it’s not like he asked my opinion.

“This is it?” I asked the demon at my side.

Brook was one of Shya’s demons. He wasn’t high in rank, but he was no less deadly than any other. Tall, dark haired with eyes as black as sin, Brook carried himself with a constant air of menace.

We stood outside the first address on the list. It was a beautiful church, massive and made up primarily of red brick. Silver steeples topped with crosses graced the rooftop.

“Yeah, that’s it. For now.” Brook leaned against my car, arms crossed. “I doubt we’ll find anything, but since we’re here, we might as well humor Shya.”

I frowned, biting my tongue so I wouldn’t tell him to get the fuck off my car. It wasn’t often that I worked with him. If I wasn’t with Jez and Alexa, I preferred to go it alone. At least Brook seemed to share my intent to appease Shya by going through the motions.

“Don’t scratch my car,” I warned before circling around the church to the back. Getting inside wasn’t hard. I’d been picking locks and frying security equipment as long as humans had been using them.

The church was just as impressive inside. Rows of wooden pews lined up in four separate sections. I walked between them, pausing here and there to scan the walls and ceiling.

I didn’t really know what I was looking for. Shya had given me instruction to seek any item that could be the scroll he sought or even a hiding place for it. He was insistent that if I found it, I would know it immediately. The thing must have a hell of a mojo.

Making my way to the altar, I picked up random objects and put them back down. Bibles, candles, statues. All of it was pretty run of the mill church stuff. Truth be told, I was hoping like hell I wouldn’t find a damn thing.

After walking the building once more, I slipped out the way I’d come in, leaving the place otherwise undisturbed. Brook was right where I’d left him, looking both bored and vicious.

“Nothing?” He said, almost more of a comment than a question. “Figures. Shya’s the most clever asshole I know, but I don’t think he’s thinking this one through.”

I agreed but wasn’t stupid enough to say so. One didn’t say more in front of demons than absolutely necessary. They could twist the most harmless of comments into something deadly that could later be used as a weapon.

“Let’s go to the next one. It’s not like I have anything better to do.” I got into the car and waited for the demon who shrugged and got in on the other side.

“Now this place I can go into,” Brook proclaimed when we pulled up at the next address. “Good. It’s going to be a total bore if I have to wait in the car all night.”

He strode up the front walk with an air of pride. The sound of ruffling feathers was loud in the stillness despite the fact that his wings were not visible to me. I hung back, reluctant to go through the front door.

“Let me in the back,” I said. “We need to keep a low profile.”

Without a response, Brook disappeared. A minute later, he was waiting for me at the back door, opening it from the inside. Though I didn’t envy his role in this world, that was certainly an ability worthy of respect.

“So what makes this one different?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. “Why can you come in here but not the last one?”

Brook’s black gaze landed on me with suspicion. He studied me as if trying to decide how much damage the truth would do. Ultimately he decided it was very little.

He shrugged and began to walk about the vast interior. His voice echoed in the dark quiet. “There’s no angel here to protect it. No one here to wield divine power against me. So I can come and go as I please.”

I went the opposite way, picking up books, looking in potted plants, feigning interest in Shya’s damn relic. “Is that how it works then? Angels protect churches?”

“They protect a lot of things. Many churches have a protector. Usually the ones with the most to guard.” He turned, hands raised to the vaulted ceiling, eyes closed. He sucked in a deep breath. “Which means there is nothing here for us to find.”

I wanted to keep him talking, knowing I wouldn’t get much more from him. “So what about Hounds of God and other beings like that? They’re not angels, but they still seem to have something to protect.”

Brook snickered, a low, evil sound that caused my skin to crawl. It had been a long time since anyone had made me so uneasy with such little effort. “The Hounds of God were made to protect humankind. They were mortals, human themselves, turned wolf. It was a gift.” Brook paused near a statue of the Virgin Mary, gazing into her lifeless eyes. “Of course, we hunted and killed most of them. Their numbers are few these days.”

Our eyes met, and he smiled. I knew what he was thinking. It was only a matter of time until Alexa became another casualty.