Wicked Sunset (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 4) (40 page)

“Got it,” I said with a nod.

“Hey,” he called as I made it halfway down the steps from the third floor. “More cough drops!”

“Done!” I said.

See? I’m handy as all get-out tonight.

Using the advice Kat had provided, I slipped one of my knives in the small of my back underneath my leather jacket and the other one I strapped to my calf, grip downward and concealed by the cuff of my jeans.

There was a cold north wind that night, so I zipped up my jacket and walked briskly to Trumbull, and headed west a short distance to Whitney Avenue. Then it was a quick walk from there to the Haven Sent Mart.

I quickly found what I needed and walked toward the checkout. As I rounded the aisle, a pensive-looking man wearing dark clothing stood at the main register and asked for a pack of cigarettes.

The guy kept looking around him and nervously placing a hand in his jacket pocket.

The young woman at the register appeared wary and glanced over at me.

Was the guy preparing to rob the place?

Kat and Paige had always lectured to me to pay attention to my surroundings and think ahead over possible scenarios.

I didn’t see anyone else nearby, though I remembered an old lady in the medicine aisle at the back of the store.

Get ready.

I stepped toward the register, acting nonchalant, but unzipped my jacket and started to reach to the small of my back to seek the hilt of my knife.

The guy noticed me approaching him and he turned to look at me.

We stared back at each other for a few seconds, and I kept thinking,
be ready for whatever he does
.

Combat techniques started flowing through my head like clockwork, and I tried to relax my body so I could move faster.

Then the fellow said, “Uh, I don’t think I have my wallet. Just forget about it.”

Then he quickly made his way to the exit.

My heart felt like it was beating a mile a minute as I let out a breath I’d been holding and placed my items onto the counter.

The cashier—her nametag said Cathy—looked relieved, too. “That guy was giving off a real bad vibe.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe you shouldn’t be working alone here tonight.”

She shrugged. “One of the assistant managers had a flat tire, so he’s not here yet.”

I texted Roman and then visited for a few minutes more with Cathy until I noticed an older gentleman enter the mart.

“Finally made it, Cathy,” he said. “Thanks for covering things for me.”

Never a dull moment in my life.

“Hey, thanks a lot,” Cathy said to me as I started to leave.

“Glad to help,” I said.

I was relieved nothing actually happened, but I’d felt reassured about my state of readiness.

It was at that moment I fully appreciated the value of mental conditioning as much as practicing combat techniques.

I zipped up my jacket against the cold wind and rounded the corner onto Trumbull. For some reason, a shiver went down my spine.

I turned to look back over my shoulder and noticed those two thuggish-looking guys who I’d periodically seen around town; they were following behind me.

They were closer than I’d ever been to them, and that’s when I took notice of their pasty-white faces. Despite the cold air, they both looked like they were sweating; almost as feverish-looking as Roman had been.

One of them had dark hair and the other fellow had a burr cut, and both looked to be around my age, maybe a little younger.

Why was there something so familiar-looking about them?

That’s when it occurred to me that I’d seen those telltale symptoms before…back when I was transforming from human to vampire.

My own face had appeared quite similar.

Given the occasional traffic driving by, it wasn’t as if I felt alone, but I didn’t necessarily feel exactly safe, either.

A sense of aggravation and irritation bubbled up inside me. I was so tired of these two popping up to and fro on a whim.

I turned to confront them. “Who the hell are you guys, anyway?”

Rather than answer, they both rushed forward with a quick burst of speed that caught me off guard. They knocked me off of the sidewalk and into a dense line of ornamental trees.

Stupidly, I held onto my plastic bag of items, but successfully kept my balance with a pivot and spin of my body.

Each of them grabbed one of my arms and half-hauled me up to the doorway of an old building that we were in front of. That’s when I managed to drop my grocery bag.

One of the guys kicked the rickety door open as I struggled to free myself. Then they threw me inside.

I rolled just as I’d been taught and recovered into a crouching position. It was so dark inside I could barely make out where they were both standing.

“Whose vampires you runnin’ with?” one of them asked.

“What?” I demanded.

“You heard him, asshole, which clan you with?” the other man asked.

I just stared at them.

Clan?

“Let’s beat it outta’ him,” the first one said.

Don’t wait for them!

I lunged forward at the one that was closer, but the other fellow moved quickly to my left and slammed his fist into my ribs.

Spinning away from his punching side, I used my body’s momentum and caught him in the solar plexus with my fist.

It felt like I hit a solid side of beef.

He swung at my head, and I managed to duck and pivot out of the swing, but the other guy was already trying to foot sweep me.

Damn, they’re fast!

I barely managed to avoid falling and used my left hand to right my balance while reaching back to retrieve the combat knife hidden beneath my jacket.

The blade came free as I spun around with it in my hand. My arm made a neat arc and the blade imbedded firmly into the dark-haired fellow’s chest.

The look of shock on his face must’ve matched my own, and everything seemed to freeze in time for a split second.

He gasped, as if out of breath, and staggered backward with his hands around the blade’s hilt until he impacted the sheetrock wall behind him.

The other man rushed forward and began pummeling me about the head and gut almost simultaneously. I only managed to fend off a few of his blows as a series of pains erupted wherever they impacted me.

I saw stars on two different occasions before feeling myself falling backward.

My body impacted the floor with great force along with a huge wave of pain that coursed through my body, nearly taking the breath from my lungs.

Before I could roll up off the floor, my assailant was upon me, punching me over and over again.

His strength was ferocious.

I managed to bring my right knee up between me and his body, and kicked him away from me.

Reaching down to the cuff of my jeans on my right leg, I fumbled to grasp the hilt of my other combat knife.

I heard an angry roar and the guy was atop me again, raining a hail of punches down upon me.

My left hand reached into my jacket and grabbed at something—anything—I could use against him.

I felt one my small flashlights, which I activated and jammed toward his face.

To my surprise, he yelled out and held his right hand up before his face as his left fist shot out at me, catching me in the forehead.

My brain felt numb as I desperately sliced my knife upward in an arc at him.

I heard a gurgling sound coming from him as he teetered away from me.

I managed to make out his pale hands grabbing at his throat as he staggered to get up and then fell back onto the floor.

Everything had happened so fast that I was still reeling from shock and couldn’t think straight.

I fought to understand what had just happened.

Flashlight? Why the flashlight?

The man’s reaction didn’t make sense.

I felt as if I was fighting to keep from blacking out as pain permeated my body. My head throbbed horribly even as my heartbeat was hammering in my ears.

I struggled in vain to get up but finally lay back onto the floor, listening to the sound of thunder somewhere nearby as I fumbled around for my cell phone.

…must’ve fallen out of my pocket during the fight.

Then I realized neither of the men was moving anymore; both had fallen strangely silent.

I thought I heard the distant sound of my cell phone, but it seemed so surreal I thought I might be hallucinating.

Then the sound of wind and rain outside, coupled with my ragged breathing, were the only noises around me.

Time felt suspended as I lay on the floor in a painful, winded state trying to recover enough to move again.

“Caleb!” yelled Paige’s frantic voice seemingly from out of nowhere.

“What?” I asked, suddenly foggy-brained.

Then I felt her hands patting me over, which only exacerbated the pain my body was in.

“Are you injured?” she asked in a frantic voice.

“Ouch, stop, stop, yes,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “I got the hell beat outta’ me.”

“What the freak happened?” she asked. “Who are these guys?”

“Vam-somethings,” was all I managed to say in my addled state of mind.

“Vampires?” she asked. “You’re not making sense, these guys smell like…no way.”

“How did you find—?” I asked.

“Tracked your cell phone,” she said. “Found it outside.”

I felt a swish of air by me and heard the sound of rapid scuffling across the room and back.

“They’re both dead, Caleb,” she said. “Wait, I’ve seen those knives—aw crap, did you kill them?”

“No choice,” I mumbled.

“Okay, okay, we gotta’ get you outta’ here and then clean the scene,” she said.

I coughed and then groaned as a sharp pain traveled through my ribs.

“Paige? Caleb?” asked Roman’s raspy-sounding voice.

A beam from a flashlight swept the room and I vaguely made out the two bloody bodies in the room that had been my attackers.

“Oh, shit,” I said, suddenly realizing I’d actually killed them.

Wait, Paige already said that…

“Roman, help me,” Paige said. “We’ve got to get Caleb home and then take care of this…”

I tried to push myself up from the floor as intense pain coursed through my chest and abdomen. Lightning flashed through the open doorway, and I looked down at the blood-covered combat knife I was still holding.

That’s the last thing I remember before seeing stars and then the world went black around me.

Chapter 32

Caleb

The next thing I remember, I woke in my bed with Paige sitting beside me. She caressed my face with her cool, soft fingertips and smiled down at me.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

As soon as I shifted where I lay, my body was filled with pain, and it was only slightly more bearable than not; certainly not as bad as I’d felt that night.

“What time—what day is it?” I asked, feeling confused and slightly disoriented.

“Saturday,” she said. “You’ve been mostly unconscious since we brought you home last night.”

She told me that she and Roman managed to dispose of the bodies, using her car to transport them outside of town once they got me safely home.

“You were pretty out of it, but we had to take care of things while we could,” she said.

She also said they set fire to the abandoned building to mask forensic evidence.

She examined me at length and we both felt comfortable that nothing was broken, although my torso and head had already formed some ugly bruises.

I mostly slept for the remainder of the day.

When I awoke that evening, I felt as if I was in a semi-lucid state. At first my vision was slightly blurry, but then it focused and I recognized Kat sitting by my bedside.

I felt a wave of relief at seeing her. However, I still felt numb inside and half-asleep.

“Hello, my love,” she said.

“What time?” I asked.

“It’s Saturday still; almost eleven at night,” she said. “Alton and I arrived as soon as we could. Ethan’s here already, too. He’s downstairs with Paige, but he wants to examine you further.”

I took in a deep, pain-laden breath and let it out.

“S-sure,” I said.

“How do you feel?” she asked softly, running her fingertips lightly across my face, just as Paige had done.

It tickled, but felt oh-so-very-soothing.

“Numb,” I replied.

It was the word of the day for me; yet, so very appropriate. My mind felt clouded and hazy.

“Mild shock,” she said.

“I kill---”

“I know. Paige told me about the two men,” she interrupted me.

I killed two men last night.

Wait, there was something else.

“Not men,” I said.

“Shh, rest now,” she said, caressing the skin on my right arm with her fingertips.

A pleasant wave of tingling superseded the pain I was feeling.

“I’ve corrupted you, haven’t I?” she asked. “I’ve gone too far this time, equipping you to contend with circumstances that you never should’ve been confronted with.”