The Damned (25 page)

“You are less than an animal,” he said.

She smiled. “Sergio doesn’t understand how you feel. He doesn’t understand your compassion for humanity, your longing to be one of them. He doesn’t understand that Jenn is in your heart. He thinks that killing her will change everything. I disagree. Do you know what I say?”

“What?” Antonio whispered, fear for Jenn racing through him until he couldn’t think straight.

“I say, since she’s in your heart, don’t kill her.”

Aurora plunged the knife back into his heart and began to twist it.

“Cut her out.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sometimes the hardest thing you have to do is fight when you’d rather just give up. You can’t give up. No matter what. Not even if your heart is breaking. Not even if everything and everyone you love has been taken from you. You must keep going. Because sometimes, the fight is all you have.

—from the diary of Jenn Leitner
,
discovered in the ashes

L
AS
V
EGAS
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA
M
INUS
A
NTONIO
; T
AAMIR AND
N
OAH

Holgar couldn’t help but stare. He had never seen anything like Las Vegas in his life. As they exited the plane, he gaped in amazement at the bright, clanging slot machines that filled the airport. There were neon lights and scantily dressed women, both human and Curser, everywhere. Taamir looked like he was going to faint. Noah was steadily taking it all in.

“And this is only the
airport
?” Jamie asked in amazement.

Holgar was right there with him. He had heard stories of Sin City, grown so much more sinful now that the Cursed Ones had turned it into a stronghold, but he had a feeling that nothing could have prepared him for the reality.

Mixed couples—Cursed Ones and humans—held hands, kissed, touched. Heads were thrown back, and vampires sucked. The Salamancans and their two allies traded wary glances.

“Everyone’s got bat necklaces,” Jenn murmured, and she was right. Everywhere he turned, there were all manner of glittering necklaces on throbbing bosoms. “It means you only hook up with Cursed Ones,” she told Noah and Taamir.

“Yes, we have them too,” Noah said.

“‘Hook up,’” Holgar echoed. “That’s so American.”

“Hook up, die, whatever,” Jenn muttered.

“What the—,” he heard Jamie say, and he turned to look. There was a long granite bar dotted with tall lacquered bar stools. A vampiric bartender in full fangs held out what looked like a hookah to two giggling young women. Behind him, backlit by an illuminated mirror veined in crimson, large clear cisterns bubbled with red liquid. The bartender cast no reflection.

“Blimey, it’s a blood bar,” Skye said, wrinkling up her nose in disgust.

“A what?” Taamir asked, looking nauseated.

“Like any other kind of bar, but instead of selling sake or beer, they sell different types of blood,” Eriko said. “They started in Japan, I think.”

“Look at those two. They’re human,” Skye said, horror filling her voice as she pointed at the young women at the bar. “They’re not actually going to drink blood, are they?”

“The rules have changed,” Eriko murmured.

“Or maybe not,” Taamir said quietly. Holgar realized that prewar Vegas would have been too much for the conservative man’s sensibilities, never mind the city’s current state of decadence.

“Let’s keep moving,” Holgar suggested.

“Yes. Remain unnoticed,” Jenn said crisply.

She missed Antonio, and she was terrified about what might be happening to him. Holgar understood that and did his best to hurry the others along. Of all of them he understood best how to nonverbally manipulate people. Wolves had complex codes of gestures and body language, and werewolves used them to their advantage in their dealings with regular humans.

Complying with his unspoken demands, they picked up their pace. Outside the airport they caught a limo that would carry all of them. Even Eriko, who was still recuperating, gawked at the hugeness of the enormous neon signs flashing and strobing to entice the crowds. And the casinos! A castle boasted turrets and pennants; another was a pirate lagoon; a third looked like the city of New York.

“So extreme,” Taamir said.

“So America,” Jamie added. Then he turned to Skye. “You’re absolutely positive that your boyfriend’s not tracking us through you?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. She’d been very contrite about the Dark Witch named Estefan Montevideo. “And I’ve created magickal wards around myself and all of you to be doubly sure.”

“Wards?” Noah asked.

“Walls,” she explained. “Barriers.”

“So you didn’t have them up before because . . . ?” Noah persisted.

“I have, on and off,” she said defensively. “Magick costs, Noah.”

“So does nearly killing your own teammate,” Jamie said.

“Enough,” Jenn said.

The van left the heart of the flashing casino district for the more sedate Desert Blossom, the hotel where they would be staying. They’d have adjoining rooms, one for the girls and one for the guys. Jenn had picked it to keep them under the radar. Holgar wondered if anything in Vegas could be considered under the radar. How on earth were they going to find Antonio?

He glanced at Jenn and could tell from her wide eyes and ashen expression that she was wondering the same thing. He felt for her. It was hard to be in love sometimes, harder still when you were separated by distance. Worse when you were separated by philosophy.

G
RIBSKOV,
D
ENMARK,
T
HREE
Y
EARS
E
ARLIER
H
OLGAR

Holgar awoke on the soft forest floor in a slow, hazy way. He was naked except for a pile of leaves that had fallen on him while he slept. Around him other members of his pack were slowly stirring or whimpering in the last minutes of sleep. The moon had been full the night before, and the pack had run together. Holgar ran his tongue over his gums, savoring the coppery aftertaste that confirmed that he had hunted and killed prey.

“Good morning,” a young female voice said from a few feet away.

Holgar rolled over. Kirstinne lounged on the forest floor nearby. Her long blond hair cascaded around her naked body, and he watched as she stretched and yawned. She was beautiful and perfect in every way. He felt the familiar desire stirring inside him, and he whined low in his throat.

“Good morning,” he replied.

“It was a fantastic hunt last night,” she said, as she slowly sat up.

“It was,” he said lazily.

“Like a dream, a wonderful, awesome dream,” she said wistfully.

She crawled over to him and sat scratching his back. He contracted slightly so her blood-encrusted fingernails raked along his shoulder blades. Holgar sighed with pleasure. She bent over and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth to tease him. He licked her cheeks eagerly.

Werewolves, like their wild counterparts, mated for life. And Kirstinne was his betrothed. They had been raised together, and they would be joined within the year. They would have a wedding for the mundane world to see, attend, and record. Then they would have a private ritual under the full moon, attended by their pack. When they made love for the first time it would be as wolves, as was tradition.

She was his and he was hers, and they could wait.

Both the man and the wolf in him yearned for that connection, that partnership, that foreverness. The way Kirstinne smiled at him, Holgar knew she yearned for it too. At sixteen they were still too young to properly raise cubs, though not by much.

A dozen feet away Holgar’s father stood slowly, threw back his head, and howled. The older members of the pack answered in turn, while the younger ones, like Holgar and Kirstinne, could only manage a small, barking response while in human form.

Holgar and Kirstinne walked hand in hand to the duffel bags where they had stashed their clothes prior to transformation. One of his younger cousins ran over and playfully stomped on Holgar’s foot. Holgar yipped and swung at him lazily. The boy darted away, laughing, and some of the younger girls giggled at his prank.

Life was good in the pack. Everyone knew their place and what was expected of them. From that came freedom to play, to laugh, to hunt—to just be. Holgar closed his eyes, savoring the smells of the forest and the scents of the other denizens who marked their path through it.

“Are you coming to Elsa’s party tonight?” Kirstinne asked suddenly.

Holgar wrinkled his nose. Elsa was one of Kirstinne’s closest friends, but she wasn’t a werewolf. Nor did she know about them. Elsa’s parties were always too loud, too hot, too crowded, and too full of smells. They made him sneeze, and his ears would often ring for a day afterward. And the worse offense of all? They weren’t fun.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Come on, this one’s going to be special,” Kirstinne said, and there was breathless excitement in her voice.

“Really? Why?”

“Yes. She’s invited a Cursed One.”

Holgar stumbled and caught himself. “Cursed Ones, here?” he asked.

“Yes. Apparently they’re new to the area. Isn’t that exciting?”

He cocked his head. “But Kirsti, they’ll know what we are. They’ll be able to smell us.”

“So?” she asked with a shrug.

“What if they out us?”

She pulled her hand free of his and then wagged a finger in his face. “You worry too much, Holgar.”

“Just because they want to go public doesn’t mean we do. I mean, people are stupid enough to find their danger alluring. What about us? Half the world still fears normal wolves without reason. Do you think they’ll find us sexy? No, they’ll think we’re monsters. I, for one, don’t want to die from a silver bullet in my heart.”

“That wouldn’t happen,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Then why do you think werewolves have never staged a coming-out party? I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

“Maybe because we don’t have an international leader, like Solomon. Each pack has its own leader, and we don’t interact with one another.”

“Which makes it all the more dangerous. If people start hunting our pack, there’s no one to help.” He hated arguing with Kirstinne, but her casual attitude alarmed him. They had a comfortable life without anyone in their village knowing who they were. For centuries it had been that way. Why change it now?

He blamed the vampires. If they had stuck to the shadows, no one would have thought to do otherwise.

Kirstinne angled her head in a way that was both pleading and scolding. Holgar sighed. “I’ll go to the party,” he said. “I have, after all, been curious to meet a vampire myself.”

She squealed and threw her arms around his neck. “You won’t regret it!”

But Holgar did regret it. Twelve hours later, dressed casually in a Flight of the Conchords T-shirt, jeans, and sandals, he was standing with his back pressed against a wall in Elsa’s kitchen when a Cursed One wearing all black came striding in. Black silk shirt, black jeans, black boots, black hair, black eyes. He looked like some weird emo goth.

Holgar crinkled his nose at the smell of rotting blood and death the creature exuded, which worsened as the vampire sidled up to him.

“Wolf?” it asked.

Holgar flinched inwardly but refused to give sign of it. “Yes.”

The vampire smiled. “Also seeking prey?”

Holgar narrowed his eyes, not sure he took the vampire’s meaning. “What?”

The vampire waved, gesturing to the room at large. “Which one of these lovelies will you feast upon tonight?”

“None,” Holgar said, taken aback.

The man made a
tsk
-ing sound. “You should. They are, after all, ours for the taking. You and me, what carnage we could make, eh? We could divide up the girls for ourselves and then later torture the boys for fun.”

Holgar felt like he was going to be sick. Staring into the creature’s eyes, he knew the Cursed One was serious. He knew that they drank the blood of humans, but senseless killing was a far cry from feeding off donors.

The leader of the Cursed Ones, Solomon, had said that vampires could drink animal blood. Werewolves ate animals too, and didn’t have to live off of humans.

At least that was the way it was supposed to work.

He tensed, trying not to let the memory back in. He’d buried it—or tried to—for years.

He and his father were chasing down a deer. A hunter stepped from behind a tree, his gun aimed in Holgar’s direction.

Maybe the two wolves could have dashed for safety in time. Maybe the hunter was only pretending to line up the shot. Maybe he would have spared the wolf and gone after the deer instead.

No one would ever know.

Holgar’s father had torn out the hunter’s throat. But he hadn’t stopped there. In a frenzy he’d ripped open the body, his massive jaws clamping down on the heart—

Maybe werewolves and vampires weren’t so different.
Not me. I don’t kill people. I like people.

The vampire surveyed the room greedily his eyes glowing red. A gaggle of girls waved and giggled, and he waved back.

“That one,” he said, pointing toward Elsa, “was kind enough to throw this party and invite me into her home. I’ll kill her last.”

Rage flooded Holgar. He had never particularly liked Elsa—she was so shallow—but she was Kirstinne’s best nonpack friend, and he wouldn’t see any harm come to her. To any of them.

“It’s hot in here. Let’s walk for a moment under the moon and talk,” Holgar said, forcing himself to throw his arm around the vampire’s shoulders.

“Whatever you say, my furry friend.”

The night was balmy, the moon gauzy behind clouds. As soon as they were out from view, Holgar dropped his arm. “I don’t want you hurting anyone here tonight,” he said. “If someone offers to donate blood, that’s not an issue, but I don’t want anyone dead.”