Chapter Four
In the alley outside of Bathe, the scent of vampire blood was so thick, it cut through the blizzard’s swirling wind and Allhan tasted it down the back of his throat.
As he cranked his head in the direction the copper rush was coming from, he told himself to get walking. To call and get help. To do… something.
Except he just stood there, the snowflakes falling on him like he was some statue in a park, the gusts tearing around his motionless body, his hearing receding until all he had was the echo of his own heartbeat. Which was uneven as hell.
Batting the snow away from his face, he expected to find the lane littered with bodies and dismembered limbs, the still-warm corpses scattered all battlefield-carnage and then some.
But there was nothing in the glow of the security lights that were mounted on the roofs.
Just dirty snow dusted with a heavy layer of fresh, restless powder.
No red stains, no scramble of footprints. No fresh corpses.
Was he imagining this?
He had to be. There was just no way that collection of high-flying aristocrats had been killed out here, in the alley off the fucking club, wearing the stylish clothes and pricey colognes they’d put on in their glymera mansions. Males like that just didn’t… end… as casualties of the war.
Off in the distance, a siren started wailing. So the help that was coming wasn’t the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s. They rode silent.
As an ambulance tore down Market and kept right on going, he shoved his hand into his jeans pocket and took out his cell phone. He didn’t want to look at the screen, but goddamn it, he had to.
No texts from his contact.
He exhaled in relief. So this wasn’t his fault—wait, wrong phone. He was holding his Samsung. Cursing, he had to pat around to find the cheap-ass piece-of-shit burner he’d bought at a CVS from a display of all kinds of let’s-be-shadys. He’d paid cash for the thing because of course he had.
No texts on his burner.
“Hello,” he called out as he tucked it away. “Anybody there? Y-you okay?”
When there was no reply, he trudged through the snow, heading down the club’s flank toward the rear of the building and the parking lot behind.
In the back of his mind, he was aware that he was trying to talk himself out of everything he was smelling.
It was like he could manipulate reality if he just ignored his nose.
If he just didn’t call for help.
He was still arguing with his senses when he came up to an unlit passageway that cut between the buildings on the alley’s other side. Half the size of the lane proper, the thing bisected the restaurant that fronted onto Market and the real estate agency that faced Jefferson.
The scent of blood wafted out of the pitch-black shoot, like a warning in a Stephen King novel.
Squinting his eyes, he strained to see what was—
“Allhan. Help… me…”
The strangled male voice was gut-punch familiar, and he threw himself into the darkness, slipping and sliding over the ice, penetrating the walkthrough like he knew CPR. Or how to tourniquet shit.
Oh… God.
As his keen eyesight adjusted, he saw the bodies. They were facedown. All of them. Shuli’s entire crew, in those suits, with those colognes, bleeding in the snow, their arms and legs bent at bad angles.
As a hand reached for him, he stumbled over and dropped to his knees to grab on to it. Going only by the back of the head, he wasn’t sure who it was, but he didn’t know their real names, anyway.
Holding the palm, he fumbled with his Samsung. “Y-you’re okay.” The fuck the male was okay. “I’m c-calling for help—I’m calling—” Except he dropped the damn thing, the cell skipping out of his grip like a fish. “I’mgoingtogethelp. Helpweneedhelp…”
Stretching to get the phone back, he shoved it in his own face, and wondered if his horrified expression might not get him in. Not the problem. There wasn’t enough light. With a sloppy thumb he entered his six-digit code and—
“Lessers… smelled lessers… heard a clicking… they tasered us… took them…” The male coughed blood into the snow, and the gurgle was horrible. “They were… taken…”
Allhan stopped the SOS he was typing out. “Who?” He looked around frantically, and tried to remember how to count. “You’re saying the slayers abducted someone? Who?”
Six had left the club… four were here. There were only four.
“A pair of slayers… looked alike… Tasers and then the knives… took them…”
The dying male’s words were lost to babbling, the syllables running together until they were unintelligible.
“It’s okay, it’s all r-right.” After he sent the alarm out, he shuffled himself even closer. “Help is coming. Th-they’re going to take care of you, and we’ll f-find the others.”
With strength he was still unused to wielding, he pulled the male into his lap, rolling him over—
Allhan caught the curse before it came out of his mouth.
The handsome face was the color of the snow, and the pale blue eyes were unfocused, as if the male had no clue he’d been turned over and moved—oh…
God. The knife wound on the side of the aristocrat’s throat was right across the jugular, and the blood loss was tremendous, staining the collar and front of the button-down, and the entire left side of the jacket.
“Y-you’re okay,” Allhan croaked as tears flooded his eyes. “H-help is coming. Stay with me—”
The male coughed violently, and blood exploded upward, the spray hitting Allhan’s face, hot as boiling water. As he gasped, the aristocrat went into a seizure, the body flopping all around.
“I’ve g-got you.” He gathered the male closer and tried to stay calm. “I’ve…”
Wiping his face off on the crook of his arm, he looked in desperation out of the passageway as minutes became hours.
The male’s last breaths were loud as a chainsaw revving right next to his head, and that gurgling, the fucking gurgling.
He wanted to scream for the guy to just die already.
For godsakes, stop fighting the losing battle—
As if the aristocrat followed his unspoken command, everything suddenly stopped: the wheezing breath, the jerking limbs, the pulsing leak at the side of the neck.
“N-no, no, no, I didn’t mean it, you g-gotta stay with me—oh, God, oh… fuck…”
Determined to do something, anything, he pushed the male flat on the ground, got up onto his knees, and tilted that head back. Pinching the nose, he took a great inhale and sealed their mouths. As he blew hard and tasted blood, he had a moment of purpose and hope.
The air escaped out the side of the neck on a whistle.
As Allhan’s stomach flipped over with dread, he tried again, his tears falling onto the face of the male he was not going to be able to bring around, no matter how many times he tried to force air in, no matter if he started pounding on that sternum.
The pale blue eyes were still open, though, and for a split second, it felt like they were focused on him.
Like they were accusing him of everything he was doing in secret.
“W-what’s your name.” He swiped his sleeve across his cheeks. “I need to know your name.”
With sloppy hands, he went through the fine suit jacket. When there was no wallet in any of the interior pockets, he moved down to the pants. He had to let the parents know. He had to be ready for when the Brothers came to tell them the names.
Nothing. No ID, no phone.
“S-stay here.” Like the guy was going anywhere? “I-I’ll be…”
Paddling on the ice to another black-haired male—the one who’d only liked redheads—he turned that body over.
The frozen face and wide, empty eyes were the stuff of nightmares, and his hands shook as he started rifling through pockets.
The throat had also been slit, so deeply he could see flashes of the white vertebrae of the spine.
And when once again there was nothing in any of the pockets, he did a quick search of the other two.
As he turned them over, it was clear they’d died from stabs in the belly, the wounds long and gaping as if the knife blade had been dragged up for the gutting, intestines and internal organs slopping out.
As he started to hyperventilate, he had to sit back on his heels and slow his respiration. He prayed that the real addresses hadn’t been on those fake driver’s licenses—
Allhan pitched to the side and threw up his First Meal. All of it.
Bracing a hand on the snowy ground, he waited to see if his stomach wanted to evacuate itself, and he checked his phone.
There were so many texts from the Brotherhood, confirmation that they were on their way, he tried to feel relief at all the responses he got.
Except then he frowned. No location. He hadn’t given his location and there was no tracking where he was because he’d canned his ping.
On account of the real reason he was down here.
It was nearly impossible to type out: side alley bathe
“S-stay with me, j-just… stay with me…”
Who the hell was he talking to? They were already dead. All of them—and the poor souls who’d been abducted were the focus now.
Allhan’s eyes bounced from wound to wound, neck, neck, stomach, stomach. He was no expert in forensics, but it didn’t take an Einstein to guess there had been two slayers on the slaughter.
And they’d each taken a vampire to interrogate.
Letting his head fall back, he felt the snow dapple his hot cheeks and swollen lids. This was not about him, thank God.
The lesser he’d been dealing with worked alone.