Chapter Twenty-two – Luna
Chapter Twenty-two
Luna
It was twelve. Jack was not back yet and Paco was stalking around his small apartment like a caged animal.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, edging toward the door.
“No. You?” Paco asked.
I’d raided Jack’s extremely limited pantry and was drinking coffee so black it was almost sludge, hoping the sheer quantity of caffeine would constrict my veins. “Honestly—no.”
“I didn’t mean too,” Paco started. I held up my hand.
“You didn’t know any better.”
“Where is he? Why isn’t he back yet?”
“He didn’t think you’d be up till three.” I swallowed. “If he really does take that long, do you think you can make it?”
He didn’t answer me. Which was, in and of itself, an answer.
“That’s what I thought.” I didn’t think I could make it to three, either. Come on, bone marrow. Churn out some blood cells. Get pumping. “All right. New plan. I know where he’s at. We’ll go to meet him.”
“Good,” Paco said.
“Hope you don’t mind driving,” I said, grabbing my bag and tossing him my keys.
Paco looked ridiculous behind the wheel of my Fiat.
I’d brought my car with me the first night of course, and just parked it far away so Jack wouldn’t think I had one, all the better to guilt him into giving me rides—but neither Paco nor I could risk using an Uber tonight.
Besides, it wasn’t like I could get into more trouble than I was currently in, constantly on the verge of fainting around a starving vampire.
“Where are we going?” Paco asked, putting the car in drive.
“Vermillion. Have you been there before?”
“Reluctantly,” he said, and we took off.
I was fading off against the window when Paco asked, “What’s Jack gotten himself into now?”
I pushed myself upright and took several deep breaths. “I’m not entirely sure. He’s helping Maya, another vampire.”
He looked over. “The one that beat me?”
“Oh no. No, no, no. Maya helped Jack kill Rosalie. She was the one that tried to kill you for revenge.” At this, Paco grunted. “He wouldn’t be helping Maya unless it was important,” I went on. If I kept talking, I’d stay awake.
“It had better be,” Paco said, his voice dark.
“He didn’t just forget about you, you know. He died beside you every morning.”
Paco didn’t say anything, but his hands wrung the steering wheel a bit tighter.
As we turned onto the road that led to Vermillion, I could see its familiar cursive sign—and watch the way the ‘V’ was blinking, in imperfect semaphore.
“Oh shit,” I muttered.
“What?” Paco looked over.
“They’re in trouble. The light. It’s all hands on deck.”
“You’re sure he didn’t say anything?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.” Except he sort of had. In his question about the Rojo. Why else would Jack have asked it? Oh God. “Wait. I think they’re meeting with another vampire nest tonight—doing business.”
“I take it vampires don’t play nice with one another?”
“Not usually.” As we neared, I saw Vermillion’s parking lot was full of pristine vintage cars—and nearby parked unmarked white vans. “Don’t pull in—get down,” I said, shrinking myself lower. “We’ll park up the street.”
Paco did as he was told, and we both slunk out, closing our doors quietly. “Those aren’t party vans,” I said, once we were outside.
“Good eye.”
“Give me my keys again—there’s a way in the back.” I held my hand out. It wobbled unsteadily.
“I think you should wait here.”
I stared him down—all three of him. “Fuck that. I know the layout inside. Plus I know the rules. You don’t know shit, except you almost accidentally killed me, so give me the goddamned keys.”
His jaw clenched, but he handed the keyring over.
“Okay. It’s this one,” I said, without showing him. “Just—carry me over. Quietly. To the back.”
Without preamble, he scooped me up, and started jogging near the fenceline.
There were three doors at the back of Vermillion—the delivery door, the girls’ exit/entrance, and the third door that only Rosalie’s favorites knew, which looked like an electrician’s service panel and led to the secret tunnel where my Master had taken me for the first time.
Only I and my predecessor with Rosalie had had the key.
Paco set me down, I popped the lock—and then I heard: “Hold.” Only from inside my head.
I turned, lunging for my bag, and found Paco already with his hands up. We were surrounded by a squad of people—Faithful—dressed in white, and holding an assortment of weapons, from daggers to machine guns. Sam was at the head of them.
“What’re you doing here?” I held my bag between me and her, prepared to swing it, hoping the nightblade’s repellant action worked through canvas.
“Tonight we are on the same side,” she whispered.
“Like hell we are.” Jack would never put in with the Faithful—would he? Maya knew better, at least.
“Your man requested our protection,” Sam said, with her light accent.
“Jack?” Paco asked, voice full of concern—and I knew I was sunk.
“The same,” Sam said, her eyes flicking over him, judging him.
“He is my man,” Paco said, correcting her. “And I didn’t sign on for this to lose him.”
Sam turned to look back at her crew. None of them fought her. “Okay,” she said. “But we do things on my count.”
“Too bad I’m the only one with—” I began.
“Give me the key,” Paco commanded me—remembering that he could at last.
“Goddammit!” I protested, as my body obeyed and handed it over.
The Faithful avoided me in the tunnels which was fine, and Paco ran ahead with Sam. There was a lock on the far door, but I had a feeling they would just burst on out, a feeling which was confirmed when I got there and found the door hanging—hearing fighting in the rooms beyond.
I wanted to go in and help—but I was becoming all too aware of my current mortality. I sat down against a crate of barware, cold and shivering, feeling increasingly unwell. Would my current Master save me? Would anyone notice me before I died?
To do all this for nothing. To come this far and still be denied.
To be in this goddamned same tunnel and have my dreams die again, only this time in a far more permanent fashion….
I fished inside my bag and brought the nightblade out, dipping in and out of consciousness, hovering in the present, falling into my past—the first time Rosalie saw me.
How I’d felt when she pulled me out of a crowd of dancers to tell me that I danced beautifully.
Of course I did—I’d spent my entire childhood studying ballet.
She dared me to spin for her, and I did—I spun so hard I spun into her bed—
The door at the end opened up, casting everything in bright white light and a shadow ran at me.
“Rosalie?” I whispered.
The shadow paused, apparently surprised. A face peered down. I didn’t recognize her—and she wasn’t wearing white.
“No witnesses,” she muttered and lifted a heavy glass with intent—so I slashed at her with the nightblade without thinking.
The jagged edge caught her across her chest and she cried out in pain as I felt the spatter of warm blood. The blade didn’t hurt her like it had Sam—whoever she was, she wasn’t ‘good’—but I could feel its pleasure radiating up my hand nonetheless, like it’d been thirsty and it wanted more.
Meanwhile what little blood I had left in me was surging, focused on keeping this sad and perpetually disappointing meat-body, alive.
I pulled myself to a crouch as she looked from her gouged chest to me, her face curdling in anger.
“Stay back,” I growled, shaking the nightblade at her, feeling like a caveman.
“Fuck you!” she shouted, and ran for me.