The City Beneath (17 page)

“I'll make you crawl home if it means you won't give up, damn it.”

His hand tightened on my neck, and I winced from the harsh pressure. The pain brought me back slightly.

“Ouch,” I slurred.

“You've got to stay with me, DiRocco,” Walker whispered against my ear. “The hospital's too far, but it's only a few more blocks to your apartment. We'll be safe there until sunrise. Vampires can't enter uninvited.”

“What does that mean?” I murmured.

“Vampires can't physically enter a home without permission. They must be invited by a person within or by the home owner.” Walker snorted. “They might seem invincible, and they all might think they're immortal, but silver-plated bullets, wooden stakes, and decapitation all work just fine. Nothing's immortal. They're simply long-lived and hard to kill. And none of them, not one, can enter your home without permission.”

I swallowed, feeling nauseous. “Does it count if they force you to give permission?”

Walker paused. “Did you invite one of them into your apartment already?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But I have new, fortified locks on the windows.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“I didn't want to invite him,” I snapped, feeling guilty and angry about feeling that way. I'd been attacked, for heaven's sake. “Dominic was controlling my mind, and there was nothing I could do about it.”

I expected shock or worry or anger, but instead, his reaction seemed thoughtful—calculating, even. “Are the locks silver?”

I blinked. “No. I don't think so. My landlord installed them, and I doubt he sprang for silver locks.”

“Does Dominic want to turn you?”

I chuckled. “They all want to turn me. If my choices are between my apartment and the hospital, I choose the hospital.”

“All?” he asked doubtfully.

“Dominic and Kaden.”

“Ah,” he said. “That explains the vampire-on-vampire fighting. Normally, if a Master targets a specific night blood, other interested vampires concede because only a Master can transform the night blood.”

“I'm not the reason they're fighting,” I protested. “I believe Dominic. His powers are waning, and Kaden is leading an uprising against him.”

“That's your first mistake. Believing a vampire.”

“It's true, Kaden even said that—”

“And even if it's true, it's not our concern. We just need to hunt and kill them. Every last one,” Walker said.

“Even the vampire who's trying to kill other vampires?”

“What did I just say, darlin'?” he said lightly. “Every last one.”

“I'd like to see you try,” purred a voice behind us.

Walker whirled around, dropped me on the concrete behind him, and yanked something long and cylindrical from his waist. I hit the ground hard on my side. The air punched out of my chest, and a rush of warmth poured over my shoulder. I reached up to touch my neck, but my hand was already gloved in blood. Whatever had cut my palm in the alley had cut deep. I felt bile clog the back of my throat.

“Keep pressure on that,” Walker ordered, but he wasn't looking at me.

Walker was aiming a sawed-off shotgun at Kaden and the terrified human he held in front of him. The woman was middle-aged, in her late forties at least, with streaks of tinsel in her dirty-blond hair. Kaden held her like a shield, blocking Walker's shot. The woman's eyes were gigantic and petrified. She'd already been bitten. The tears pouring down her cheeks slid over the neat bite marks on her neck and continued down her collar in a pinkish tinge that stained the collar of her shirt.

I narrowed my eyes on those two, tiny puncture-like wounds on her neck and thought of my own gaping throat. Kaden had been considerably reserved while biting the woman compared to me.

“Walker,” I murmured. “He doesn't really want her. He—”

“Pressure on your neck, DiRocco. Now.”

I pressed my uninjured palm firmly into my neck, and bit back a whimper.

“I can heal her,” Kaden said, nodding in my direction.

“Give me the human, and I won't shoot,” Walker said calmly.

Kaden smiled. “You won't shoot anyway, not while she's in the line of fire. I'll give you this human if you give me Cassidy.”

Walker didn't so much as bat an eyelash. “I'm not bluffing, and I don't bargain with vampires. You set the human aside, or I'll shoot you where you stand. And make no mistake, I've loaded silver shot.”

Kaden nodded. “I'm sure you have. I wouldn't expect anything less from Bex's night blood.”

“I'm not her night blood,” Walker murmured.

I shifted my eyes back and forth between Walker and Kaden, and my gut tightened. Walker was dead serious. Granted, I hadn't known him long, but if this was him bluffing, I never wanted to play poker with the man. Kaden, however, was calling that bluff. The same cocky smirk he'd worn while smashing me against the building, tearing out my throat, and rubbing his scent over me was the same expression he wore now while bargaining with Walker. Kaden expected to get his way, and Walker, so help him, wasn't giving even an inch.

“Help me,” the woman wheezed in a squeak. “Please, help me.”

I suddenly recognized her. Without her apron, baker's hat, and sassy smile, I hadn't known her, but her voice combined with the tinsel streaks in her dirty-blonde hair finally sparked my memory. The woman Kaden was holding as a shield was none other than Greta's cousin, Jolene McCall of Jolene's Cake Designs, the woman I'd interviewed for her grand opening just two days ago.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to speak clearly through the rasp in my throat.

Jolene blinked at me, recognition spreading across her features. “Ms. DiRocco?”

“Your bakery is on the other side of the borough,” I insisted. She shouldn't even be in the area. But then, how did any of us land here in this moment? Did it matter why as long as we survived?

“I come this way all the time. Greta invited me for dinner,” Jolene whispered. “I always bring dessert.”

“Have you invited this one into your apartment?” Walker asked.

It took me a second to realize that Walker was talking to me and referring to Kaden, not Jolene. I glanced at Walker, who stared unflinching and steadily at his target.

“No,” I croaked.

“It's a fair trade, one human for another, and everyone lives.” Kaden said reasonably, stepping forward.

I cringed back slightly, but Walker was a rock. “If you take one more step—just one—I will shoot.”

He's bluffing
, I realized. He couldn't shoot Kaden with a sawed-off shotgun and not hit Jolene. He'd only temporarily wound, or perhaps only anger, Kaden while tearing Jolene to shreds with the spray. If we did trade, however, it might buy us enough time to get Jolene to safety. Walker could always come back for me; Kaden would take his time with me like he wouldn't with any other human.

“Kaden's right,” I said, crawling forward. “It's a fair trade, one human for another.”

“Stay back,” Walker warned.

“He'll kill her,” I whispered when I was even with him. “He won't kill me outright. You'll have time to come back for me.”

“I'm not coming back for you,” Walker said flatly.

“All right,” I said, switching gears. After last night, I thought we were a team; I unquestionably would've come back for him. A small part of me was surprised, but the embers of my temper, never far from the surface, simply burned hotter with resignation. “Understood. But that doesn't mean that
I
can't—”

“I'm not coming back for you, because I'm not letting you out of my sight. We're leaving together, not separately, and not in pieces.”

I crawled forward, putting myself slightly in front of Walker. “I want to take her place. I have a better chance at surviving and escaping. If we don't trade, he'll kill her now.”

“I'm being exceedingly generous,” Kaden growled. “I could kill both of you and simply take her, but I'm giving you a choice.”

Walker laughed. “You have to give me a choice unless you want to face Bex and your final death.”

“Bex is powerful, and she's a strong ally. I would never deliberately provoke your Master,” Kaden admitted.

“She's not my Master,” Walker said through gritted teeth. “And I'm not her night blood. I act on my own terms.”

“We can both attain what we want tonight and all live.” Kaden took one step closer. Jolene cringed and struggled. “Simply hear me out.”

Walker pulled the trigger.

A deafening gunshot exploded from the business end of Walker's sawed-off shotgun. The ache in my throat indicated that I'd screamed, but I couldn't hear it. Kaden was a blur of movement, just as impossibly fast as Dominic, if not a pinch faster. But the spray of buckshot was massive, just as I'd anticipated; Walker never would've landed his target otherwise. The gun worked on Kaden like it worked on the quick, winged birds it was intended for: Walker was able to clip Kaden midflight. He dropped and crash-landed, motionless on the asphalt. Blood seeped in a spreading pool around his body.

Walker's hand clamped on my neck. “Pressure, DiRocco. It's not that hard a concept.”

He yanked hard on my upper arm, urging me to stand, but I couldn't move. I couldn't tear my eyes from Jolene's massacred body. The last time I saw her, she'd been wearing her jaunty baker's hat and smiling coyly for Meredith's picture. She didn't even have a mouth to smile with now.

She hadn't moved like Kaden, so where only two, maybe three, pellets had managed to hit Kaden, the entire front of Jolene's body had been peppered with buckshot, ravaging her features beyond recognition. Somehow, the spray had spared the left side of her neck, the side that Kaden had bitten. The two neat holes from his fangs were still visible.

“We've got to go. The pellets are silver plated, but that'll only hold him off for so long.”

“I would've taken her place,” I whispered.

I could still hear her pleading with Kaden, the panicked squeak in her voice as she begged us to help her. She'd squeaked during our interview, too, from the excitement of giving us cupcakes “for the road.” Meredith and I had both finished our cupcakes before even reaching the curb, they were so damn good.

I should have snagged those extra copies of the paper for Greta and asked her if Jolene liked our feature. I should have taken the time to follow up.

I couldn't stop staring at what had once been Jolene's face.

“Come on, DiRocco,” Walker urged. “Don't quit on me now.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and tugged me to my feet.

I slapped at him, but my movements were clumsy and weak. “You killed her!”

Walker jerked, taken aback. “I saved our asses. Now, let's
go!
”

He scooped me up, one arm under my back and the other under my knees. Holding me across his chest, he ran.

“What about her?” I gasped. My voice was becoming breathy and hollow. My anger, although fully stoked, was being fueled by fumes. “Who was there to save her ass?”

“Put pressure on your neck,” Walker snapped.

“Just put me down.” I struggled, but the city streetlights were whirling, tilting into complete darkness.

“We're almost at your apartment. I have a kit on me, but I won't have much time to get an IV in you before Dominic attacks. It won't take him long to contain the scene with Kaden down.” Walker sighed and spoke almost to himself. “He'll know I'm with you in your apartment.”

“If you take me to the hospital, instead of my apartment, you won't have to worry about him entering and attacking us. I haven't given him permission to enter the hospital like I have my apartment. We'd be safe at the hospital.”

Walker pursed his lips.

“But you don't want us safe. You just want a chance to kill Dominic,” I said, bitterly, hating that Dominic was right but hating that Walker was using me as bait even more.

“Of course I want you safe,” Walker said, looking affronted. “What do you think the IV is for? Maybe if you had called out sick, like I suggested, you wouldn't need it now.”

I blinked. “Where did you get an IV?”

Walker sighed. “I should've brought blood, too, but I didn't anticipate this. You were supposed to stay with your brother tonight. You were supposed to be safe.”

“Who could have anticipated what happened tonight? You were supposed to be my backup against the monsters, not one of them,” I murmured, thinking of Jolene, her lips trembling as she pleaded with us to help her. “God, she was so scared.”

“Cassidy?” Walker's voice turned sharp, but all I could see was Jolene's face. “Open your eyes. We're almost at the apartment, damn it!”

The whirling streetlights winked and extinguished in a swallowing tide, abandoning me, Jolene, and her haunting pleas to complete darkness.

A
n unendurable, relentless pain pounded through my neck. I squirmed away from the pressure, but large, steady hands held my head immobile. I was lying on my back on what felt like my own bed, but that was wrong. No one but me had ever been in my bedroom, and besides a few wishful thoughts about Walker recently, I didn't have any intention of breaking that streak. The pressure worsened until I felt strangled by the pain. I heard myself moan. I bit my lip.

“I know it hurts, but it's all right, darlin'. I'm just wrapping your neck. Can you hear me?”

“Walker?” I licked my lips. “We're at my apartment?”

“Yes,” he breathed, sounding relieved. “Your neck needs stitches, but this will do for now. Dominic will be here any moment, and I still need to get that IV in you.”

“You know he'll come because of me. We're not safe here.”

Walker exhaled loudly, nervously. “That's the plan.”

He really is using me as bait for Dominic
, I thought, my heart sinking.
This is really happening.

Something sharp suddenly dug into the bend of my elbow. I winced and jerked back.

“Fuck,” Walker whispered hotly. I felt him clamp a hand around my forearm, immobilizing my arm against the bed. The sharpness suddenly stabbed even deeper. “Keep still. It's just the IV.”

“You could've warned me,” I muttered. My voice sounded sluggish and thready, even to me.

“I did,” he said, sliding the needle out of my skin and stabbing it in again. “Shit,” he breathed vehemently, wriggling the needle under my skin.

“Walker,” I gasped, overwhelmed by the pain.

He withdrew the needle again. “I know. I'm sorry. Your blood pressure's too low. I can't . . . your veins ain't, well, they just ain't cooperating.”

“Hospital,” I whispered.

“I know. We will,” Walker said, and then he stabbed me again.

I struggled not to lash out. “Just leave it,” I ground out.

“Almost,” he said, concentrating.

A shadow moved in the corner of my vision. I felt the hairs on my neck rise to attention and knew only one creature who made me this aware of the nuances of fear, trepidation, and undeniable heat in my body. Even though I knew who would be outside my window, I held my breath as I shifted my eyes to look. Despite all our interaction, his existence still seemed like a nightmare, but the glowing eyes and snarling face of the vampire outside my window was very much, very terrifyingly real. Dominic met my gaze and bared his teeth. Gone was the polished, handsome façade I'd interacted with earlier this evening. He wasn't even pretending to smile.

“Walker,” I panted. “He's—”

“Just. One. Second,” Walker whispered. He frowned in concentration, and this time, the needle slid nearly painlessly through my skin into the vein. “Got it.”

Dominic slammed open the window and was inside the apartment before I could utter another word, but just as fast as Dominic blurred through the window, an explosion of machine-gun fire erupted from a mechanism on the far wall. I gaped as Dominic dropped to a complete halt in midair and crumpled on the floor in a heap.

Walker looked up from my arm, a calculating expression on his formerly boyish face. A slow, creeping smile widened his lips, not unlike the smile on the Grinch as he got his awful idea to steal Christmas, and I realized that the situation had been planned and the plan had worked.

“You planned all this,” I whispered aloud. I stared at Dominic's motionless body.

“Of course. I would never deliberately put you in danger. I knew he'd fall.”

I shook my head. “You set this trap for Dominic while I was passed out. You took the time to use me as bait instead of getting me help!”

“Who else would you have me call? I
am
your help.” Walker ducked away from view and emerged from behind the bed a second later with a short wooden javelin, undoubtedly the stake needed to finish the job.

Jesus,
I thought.
The man's going to stake a vampire through the heart in my bedroom.

The room was still and quiet for a hushed moment, me staring nervously at Walker, Walker glaring triumphantly at Dominic, and Dominic's glassy and vacant gaze focused on my ceiling. Stake in hand, Walker knelt next to his body. Dominic was still wearing the sharp suit from earlier this evening, but now the fabric was ravaged by bullet holes.
Like Jolene
, I thought bitterly, except his blood seeped out slowly—a steady, streaming leak rather than a pulsing flow.

Walker placed the stake on Dominic's chest, over his heart.

I blinked, and Dominic's hand was suddenly wrapped around Walker's wrist. I hadn't seen him move. I hadn't even seen him flinch. One moment, Walker was preparing to stake him, and the very next moment, Dominic was restraining him with one hand.

“SHIT!” Walker shouted.

Dominic's wounds ejected the bullets and healed as we watched. Steam cracked from his skin, and I heard the metallic clatter of the bullets hit, bounce, and roll around on my hardwood floors.

Walker attempted to pull away, but Dominic's single handhold around his wrist held him immobile. “Impossible. Those are silver bullets. His wounds should heal nearly human-slow.”

“Dominic is only slightly allergic to silver,” I whispered, horrified.

The last bullet clattered to the floor, leaving us in suspended, breathless, pounding silence.

Dominic's eyes snapped open.

Walker struggled in earnest, attempting to break Dominic's hold. He struck out with his elbow and the flat of his hand in crushing pressure-point punches.

Dominic laughed, but it was a horrible, grating noise. “This was your plan to kill me? A spray of silver and a simple staking? I expected better. Bex has been exaggerating your reputation.”

“You're just like all the rest. You think you're a god, but I've seen your kind burst into flames. I've seen you erupt into ash, and I've seen an entire body boil and melt from silver exposure. You can die,” Walker snarled.

“I most certainly can, but you brought an umbrella to protect yourself against a hurricane,” Dominic said coolly. “So I won't be dying tonight.”

Walker adjusted his grip slightly on the stake and tensed to strike.

“Be still,” Dominic intoned, staring deep into Walker's eyes.

Walker fell deep into Dominic's gaze, and his arm dropped to the side.

“Hand me the stake,” Dominic said, his voice mild and soft and more dangerous than I'd ever heard.

I could see the fire in Walker's eyes, but his body obeyed without hesitation. He handed Dominic his own wooden stake.

“Thank you,” Dominic said.

Dominic was suddenly a blur of speed and motion. He drove Walker backward by his neck, slammed him up against my bedroom wall, and stabbed him through the shoulder with his own stake, pinning him like an insect on display. Walker's throat made strangled, coughing noises through Dominic's choke hold, but otherwise, he didn't so much as blink.

“If I'm not mistaken,” Dominic murmured, ripping the stake from Walker's shoulder and testing its weight in his hand, “I'm not the only creature in this room who can die by a stake through the heart.”

Dominic tightened his grip on the stake and cocked his arm to strike.

“No!” I shouted, but my damaged throat only expelled a tight squeal. “Please don't.”

His body remained poised and ready, but Dominic turned his head to stare at me. “Are you begging for his life?”

I bit my lip, unsure whether the truth or bargaining would best convince Dominic. I wasn't getting any guidance from Walker. His expression was looking increasingly like dripping paint. “Yes,” I whispered, deciding on honesty. “Please don't kill him.”

Dominic tilted his head slightly, looking calm and thoughtful, as if considering one lump or two. Maybe for him, the gravity of sparing someone's life wasn't particularly grave at all. A chittering buzzed from his nose with every exhale as he breathed. It sounded vaguely like the high, sharp vibration of cicadas, and I realized that he was struggling to contain the rattling in his chest. He was struggling and failing, as I failed most of the time, to control his anger. I struggled not to look away.

“You didn't beg for mine.”

I frowned. “Excuse me?”

Dominic released his choke hold on Walker, turned on his heel, and strode toward me. My heart quickened. I glanced between Dominic and Walker, but Walker was still mesmerized and worse than useless, even without Dominic's direct gaze on him. He remained motionless against the wall, unblinking, unseeing, and seemingly mindless. I knew the opposite was true, that he was screaming inside, but that didn't help us now.

Dominic took his time walking to me. His skin was flawless beneath the tatters of his torn black dress shirt, healed to smooth, healthy perfection after the damage he'd sustained. Despite his body and the strength I knew he possessed, the expression on his face made my gut turn sour and tremble. His face wasn't the sculpted, jaw-dropping beauty that had visited my office just a few hours ago. Healing must have taken its toll because his mask of humanity was slipping. His cheeks were sallow. His eyes glowed from the sunken depths of overprominent cheekbones. The tips of his fangs extended out of his thinned lips even without snarling. As he approached, he did snarl, and when his lips lifted farther away from his fangs, his teeth seemed longer and more lethal.

Before he could reach the bed, an idea struck me. I took a shuddering breath against the fear, nausea, and pulsing darkness, looked into Dominic's eyes, and said, “Dominic Lysander, I revoke your invitation. You are not welcome in my apartment.”

Dominic grinned. “That's the funny thing about invitations. You can revoke them all you want, but the boundaries here that protected you from me are already shattered. There's no going back.”

One moment Dominic was adjacent to the bed, grinning down at me with his sharp fangs, and the next, he was straddling me, his talons clamping onto my shoulders and holding me up from the bed, centimeters from his face.

I screamed, but my voice was hoarse and weak, and it sounded more like a moan. It sounded awful and pathetic, and I hated that a noise like that came from me.

“You beg me to spare his life,” Dominic growled, our noses nearly touching. I could hear the bones and muscles and tissues snapping and shifting under his skin as his jaw prepared to extend. “But you didn't beg him to spare mine.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I didn't know how to respond.
Of course I didn't beg him to spare you
, I thought, but a response like that wouldn't bode well for my survival. I snapped my mouth shut.

“I have saved you as he has saved you. He has used you to bait me as I long to use you to bait Kaden, but I had the decency to ask your permission, to include you in my plans. If you're his friend, why, too, can't you be mine?”

I opened my mouth again, thinking that I knew exactly what to say this time.
You're a murderer
, I thought, but then I snapped my mouth shut again. I never actually witnessed Dominic murder anyone, but I still couldn't forget Jolene's fear-filled face or the fact that Walker had killed her.

“You seemed perfectly able to take care of yourself without my assistance,” I settled on as a response. “Walker wasn't doing well on his own.”

“You flee from me, leave another scene for me to prepare along with at least a hundred witnesses and over a dozen police officers to entrance, and then you watch as that boy attempts to stake me without so much as a peep from those lips of yours. And after all that, after everything you've done to slight me, you actually have the audacity to beg me for his life.” Dominic shook me violently. “What have you done for me that I should consider doing this favor for you?”

Something warm oozed down my shoulder. Dominic must have torn open the wound on my neck again. Starbursts of darkness swamped my vision. “I could have taken her place,” I muttered, and the entire room winked out.

 

The sharp, crisp scent of pine was thick on the air and brought back the memories of Christmas, the most precious days of my childhood. Mom and Dad would sip eggnog and pass gifts and take pictures, and I hadn't appreciated any of it at the time. I was appreciative of their love and their gifts, but I hadn't appreciated the simple blessing of their presence. I suppose most children don't until they're older, but Nathan and I had never been given that necessary time. After our parents died, we let go of the formalities of Christmas traditions in favor of our careers. For better or for worse, the eggnog, gifts, pictures, and joys of the holiday died along with our parents.

Inexplicably, after five years of bare walls, leftovers, and solitude on Christmas, I suddenly had the scent of pine.

Something slick and warm was inside my neck. I winced away from it, but it pressed deeper, sliding between tendons and the grooves of torn flesh. I breathed in sharply, catching another hit of pine, and reality punctured through my memories of childhood. Dominic was on top of me. The pressure and movement of his tongue was sharp and needle-like as he healed my neck. Heat radiated in pulsing pleasure as the flesh mended, creating a strange tightrope sensation between pain and achy need.

Healing hadn't felt like this before. Although his bite had felt like an explosion of pleasure, instant and nearly unendurable, the heat from his healing had never been more than simple heat. Now, a surging wave of pleasure was arching over us, the threat of its impending crest and crash daunting.