“You’re very kind!” She had to keep pretending that she thought she needed to yell for him to hear her. In truth, they’d both be able to hear each other if they whispered, even in this racket.
What kind of music was this? Could a person even categorize it as music? What happened to melody and lyrics and storytelling?
Christ, I really am an eighty-year-old woman.
The vampire touched her waist, reminding her to focus. She tried not to stiffen at his touch. He smelled faintly of blood beneath his sandalwood cologne. She forced herself not to recoil when his head dipped toward her ear. “Would you like to go somewhere? A place we can talk?”
Her pulse skittered and she knew he probably heard it. Hopefully he mistook it for sexual awareness. She nodded, and he pulled back to smile triumphantly. There was nothing in his eyes but malice and hunger.
She wondered how his victims couldn’t see that.
And where was his partner in crime?
Allowing herself to be led around the edges of the crowd toward a door at the back of the club, she pretended not to notice that when he pushed down on the handle, he snapped the lock.
She further pretended not to notice the way her whole body tightened with renewed awareness, the hairs springing up on her arms.
The female vamp was near now too.
Bracing herself, she gripped the vamp’s hand tightly as he led her down the dank hallway. Everything in this building was built from thick concrete. It was no wonder the noise from the deejay was just a dull thud outside.
Even here in the hallway it was significantly muffled. So much so she heard the door at the top of the hallway slam. Even a human would have heard it, so she knew it was okay to glance over her shoulder.
The female vampire sashayed toward them in a long, seductive, electric-blue dress that clung to her slender curves. Rich red lipstick painted her lips. She walked in six-inch stilettos like they were sneakers. God, this vamp was such a bloody cliché.
“My wife.” The male vamp’s mouth was at her ear. “You don’t mind if she joins us, do you?”
She scanned the hallway for cameras and spotted one above the door entrance on the opposite corner. Ignoring the vamp whose hands were clamped tight on her hips, she turned in his arms and saw the other camera at the opposite end of the narrow corridor. It was pointed at the exit door.
“What are you doing?” His fingers bit into her skin.
“Looking at the cameras,” the female vamp observed as she approached. “Looks like she’s nervous of us. I wonder why?” Then she inhaled deeply, her eyes silvered. “Oh, she smells so wonderful.”
“I know.” His voice rumbled in her ear. “I caught her scent as soon as she entered the club.”
It was hard to ignore them, but she needed to concentrate. Lifting a hand, she flicked her fingers and sent out magic toward the first camera.
She twisted in his hold and did the same to the other.
“What the fuck?” He shoved her into the wall with enough force to cause her head to crack against the concrete.
She winced at the slight ache and glared at the two vamps.
They might not have seen her magic, but they sensed its energy.
“She’s a witch!” The female vampire smacked her lover’s biceps. “You fool.”
A witch.
That’s what most supernaturals thought.
Oh, how she wished it were true.
Life would be so much easier if she were a mere witch.
“I saw. I saw what you were going to do to that girl here tonight.” She was quiet, her words just above a whisper, but she knew they could hear her. “I saw what you’ve done to all the girls before.”
Violation, blood, gore, terror.
They were psychopaths. Or sociopaths. She always got those two mixed up. Either way, they were particularly nasty feckers.
“You can’t do that anymore.”
“And I suppose you’re going to be the one to stop us?” The female vampire laughed.
Such arrogance.
And there was something about the dynamic between the two, something she’d missed in the visions.
The female was the one in charge. Which usually meant she was the oldest and therefore the strongest.
Keeping her right hand behind her back where the vamps couldn’t see, magic tingled at her fingertips as she conjured one of the wooden stakes she’d left on her bed back at the hotel.
Without a word, she moved.
She was a blur.
Unstoppable.
It all happened in two seconds.
Her wooden stake plunged with precise accuracy into the female vamp’s chest, up underneath the rib cage to pierce the heart.
The vampire’s silver eyes widened in outrage before her entire being burst into ash.
She was so shocked by her first vampire kill, she could only stare at the cloud of supernatural dust that caught in the harsh light of the aluminum bars on the ceiling.
Rookie mistake, that, losing focus.
An animalistic roar filled the corridor seconds before the male vampire slammed her to the floor. Burning pain flared up her neck, disorienting her for a moment until he lifted his head and she stared, aghast.
His long incisors, his lips, his mouth were covered in … her.
Wet gushed from her neck even as she felt the tingle of her skin repairing itself.
The bastard had torn out her throat.
His eyes widened as he watched her heal in a way no ordinary supernatural could.
And there was that burn in her chest again.
Except worse.
It was growing in a blaze and suddenly, it wasn’t the vampire she saw in front of her. It was him.
It was them.
And they deserved to die for what they did to him.
The rage consumed her.
It was like a black veil over her eyes.
When it eventually lifted, there was another pile of dust in the corridor.
What had happened …
Tears filled her eyes as she looked at her blood-covered hands. The rust of it was thick in her fingernails, like she’d clawed someone apart. Her hair swung into her vision and she saw it was wet.
Nausea roiled in her gut and she stumbled back against the corridor wall.
She slammed her eyes closed and thought of her hotel.
The dull noise of the club faded, replaced by the hum of late-night traffic. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in the middle of her hotel room. Weariness hit. The building was in Old Town, and traveling always shattered her. She used to call it teleporting until … a friend offered her a different name for it.
Afraid but needing to know, she moved slowly toward the bathroom, careful not to touch anything with her bloodied hands.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink.
Blood splattered her face, the globs of wet dark red in her hair turning those strands a muddy brown. Her clothes were stained with it.
Clearly, she’d inflicted some serious damage on the vamp before she dusted him.
She’d obviously torn him apart.
She couldn’t remember.
How could she not remember this level of violence?
She lunged for the toilet just in time.
Shuddering, shaking, she hovered over the bowl for a while before she could gather the courage to stand and look at herself again.
What she’d seen those vamps do in her vision was traumatizing. They’d inflicted terror and pain beyond imagination.
But what had she done in return?