Chapter 14
The Scarlet Lounge roared to life at midnight.
When the streetlights came on and partygoers filled the streets with their drunken shouts and glittery getups, the beasts lurking in the shadows began to take their picks.
Layla stood at the entrance to the lounge, her fingers twitching with anticipation by her sides.
Celie and Laure flanked her. Each wore a weary expression that mirrored how Layla felt.
The scent of rotting blood only increased as the night went on.
For the past hour, Layla’s head had been swimming, her thoughts becoming more difficult to pin down and vision narrowing as her heart rate increased with each wave of hunger.
The manager, this time a human gangster instead of a reaper, glanced down at her, suspicious. “You look like you would be a liability. When was the last time you fed? We cannot have any mishaps here,” she said sharply.
Layla knew her appearance was damning. There was only so much she could do to cover the enlarged black veins that pulsed beneath her eyes and on her throat.
By now her fangs could not retract, and she was distracted by every bloody temptation nearby.
The busy crowd of people outside the alleyway only made things worse—she was certain she could have picked up on someone’s paper cut from a block away if such a thing were to occur.
Still, this starvation was better than the alternative—being at her strongest, when the poison had something to feed on.
“I assure you I have more self-control now than I have ever had in my entire life,” Layla rasped.
Laure nodded. “It’s true. She’s studied under an ancient reaper. You have nothing to worry about.”
The manager looked unconvinced. She scoffed and cracked the door open a bit wider. “There’s a door fee.”
“I am here to do business, not take it,” Layla said. She lowered her voice for her next words. “I want to buy karma.”
Celie shuddered by her side while amusement pulled a soft smile onto the manager’s face. “Is that so? In that case, we have space for you.” The gangster stepped back and opened the door wider for them to move inside.
Smoke greeted them as they walked through the doorway.
Layla was grateful for the overbearing scent and its ability to cover up the old blood that lurked beneath the floorboards and in the walls.
She allowed herself to breathe deeply for the first time all day, relishing in the thick, dissatisfying air.
Her hunger remained at bay. It did not surge into her throat, and she ran her tongue over her fangs, feeling how dry they had gone from the lack of nearby temptations.
Celie’s shoulder brushed her side, pulling Layla from her internal distractions. The younger girl’s frame was rigid and tense, and she walked with a slight unease in her step. “Nothing good happens in these places,” she muttered. Fear darkened her brown eyes, rendering them almost black.
Laure slid a hand over her arm and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
The younger reaper shuddered. Her brows knitted together, and she gave Laure a doubtful look. “What if they try to take me back?”
Her friend’s expression softened. “Then I will break you out of here again. We’ll be okay, Celie. Right, Layla?” Laure’s voice went hard on Layla’s name.
Layla couldn’t ignore the accusation in her tone.
The pure vitriol that sprang into her eyes bored into her.
It went beyond a threat—Laure held a promise of violence in her gaze that Layla knew she would not survive should anything happen to this littler reaper. She nodded her agreement. “Of course.”
They followed the gangster down a set of stairs in the back of the club.
The air seemed to thicken with cold tension the farther they descended.
As they neared the bottom of the staircase, Layla stopped, turning to her companions.
“You two should stay up there. I don’t want you to get hurt in case anything happens. ”
Celie’s face, already ashen, paled even further. “Okay.” She hurried back up the stairs without another word.
Laure looked after her, then sighed as she returned her gaze to Layla. “Be careful.”
Layla waited for her to disappear after Celie before she continued down with the gangster.
They stepped out into an open basement that would have been better suited being a dungeon.
The walls shone with condensation and mold whose toxins stuffed the air until it grew hard to breathe.
Layla stepped over decaying rodent bones, following the gangster to a tall cage at the back of the room.
The bars making up the enclosure stretched from the floor to the ceiling and were covered in so much rust, Layla could imagine them being built around the same time that the city of New York had been erected.
The only light illuminating the room came from a tiny window at the top of the far wall.
As they neared the dim cage, Layla caught sight of several glass vials littering the floor inside.
She followed the trail of them to a hole in the wall, where pieces of brick had been blown out and scattered across the floor.
Inside, something hidden in the shadows breathed.
Layla pressed closer to the bars, careful not to touch them.
The moonlight did not reach inside the enclosure, but even if it did, she would have been unable to see the prisoner’s face.
Darkness covered them like a cloak, leaving only their hands visible.
Chains trailed out from a hole to iron hooks that kept them planted firmly in the stone wall.
Amid all the mildew and rot, Layla smelled humanity. Mortal flesh and warm blood sat before her; she knew that much. Her breath left her in a startled gasp. “You’re keeping a human down here? If the Saints find out—”
“Then it will not be my problem. I only take orders. I do not manage the production of the product. You will have to take any conversation on the topic up with the owner of this club,” the gangster said.
She nodded to the still human beneath the rags.
“If you want karma, you have to take it here. It doesn’t leave the premises. ”
Layla’s lips parted. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
The gangster shrugged and headed back to the stairs. “Then don’t. You’re free to go whenever you’d like. My men will collect payment at the door regardless of your decisions.” She left, leaving Layla standing alone by the enclosure.
Layla eyed the vials of the drug. Her gaze flicked from the vials to the chains and back to the human in the middle of it all.
“Where did you learn how to make this? And who is doing this to you?” she whispered.
“Is it reapers? Or humans?” Layla drew closer, the end of her shirt brushing against the bars and her breath stirring the loose flakes of rust on the metal.
“Is it the Saints?” She almost didn’t get the words out.
The human moved so fast, darting out of the hole, Layla couldn’t react in time to avoid their grabbing hand.
In a flurry of ratty fabric and angry hisses, the human fisted Layla’s shirt and yanked her into the bars.
She slammed against the metal and cried out as it burned the skin on her shoulder.
The Saint steel hissed around her melting flesh, drawing her blood and cauterizing it over and over again.
In her fight to free herself from the surprisingly strong grip of the human, Layla failed to notice them moving closer.
Until they sank their fangs into her throat.
Upon contact, they finally unlocked their grip on Layla’s shirt. Layla stumbled back, her hand flying to the fresh bite mark in her neck. Already the creature had retreated into the shadows.
Layla stared at the darkness, shock running a tremor through her body.
“Who are you—” she started, but the burning in her neck cut her off.
Layla doubled over and scratched at the bite, where boils had already begun to form around the twin holes.
The discomfort ran bone-deep within seconds of receiving this reaper’s venom.
Something felt off. She stumbled, her hand catching her against the wall before she could fall.
A familiar fury rose in Layla, and she snapped her gaze back to the cage. Her vision, narrowed and seeping with a red sheen, locked on the reaper inside. She took one step toward them, stopping only when a new scent filled the air.
Layla could have recognized that sweetness anywhere. The blood, painfully human and delicious, sang so closely to her heart, it might as well have beat with her own pulse. She tore her gaze away from the reaper and started up the stairs toward the arousing commotion.
***
The last time Elise had been this close to a reaper, she had been the one in control.
Now she sat in a blood house, a stranger with fangs dragging his nose across her throat while he inhaled her scent.
A shiver traveled down Elise’s spine. She fought to keep her composure, knowing any wrong move could anger this reaper and put her life on the line.
He moved back, a sigh escaping his lips.
“This should be fun for both of us. Miss Saint, I fear you seem uncomfortable.” The reaper had beautiful brown skin and glowing dark eyes, a picture of true beauty.
Perhaps under any other circumstance, Elise would marvel at the pretty face of this devil and his ability to captivate others while hiding lethality beneath the surface.
For now, she could only swallow hard and bunch the lace of her dress in her fists to stop from fidgeting.
“I assure you, I am fine,” she said through gritted teeth.