Daywalker’s Leman (Tales of the Sanguinant #1)

Chapter 1

Everything went according to plan until Bea actually drove the stake into the monster’s heart.

Sneaking in with the catering crew was smooth as warm butter, using the right bathroom on the fifth floor to change was no problem.

Even fixing her hair to cover the top end of the stake and touching up her makeup was no hassle, though it caused a moment of mourning when she dumped the supplies.

A necessary pang, since she couldn’t be weighed down, but it was such a nice color kit.

The red dress—low neckline, cap sleeves, tailored to hide the stake down her spine, strings of red crystals hanging in rows to match the Roaring Twenties costume theme—did its job, and the monster had zeroed in on her just exactly as Beatrice Dunlevy had hoped.

Even getting the monster alone was almost revoltingly easy. Bea had been so doggedly unobtrusive for over four long years, it was a relief to slip into something pretty and the resultant self-confidence had a near-magical effect.

Maybe it wasn’t precisely ‘near’. After all, the world held Mothmen, little green men, and bloodsucking monsters like the one collapsed under her in a mirrored elevator. Why not magic as well?

“That was for Jared,” she whispered, just as she had in so many dreams. No feeling of vengeful triumph, just simple nausea because the stake had gone in with the firm, crunching sound of biting a very crisp apple.

All her practice in the meatpacking plant paid off, though she did have to brace both feet against the elevator wall, cracking one of the mirrors.

The monster—all six-foot-something of lean, sandy-haired fiendishness masquerading as a reclusive businessman—obligingly collapsed, and truth be told she hadn’t been entirely ready for complete success.

Bea had expected a blood fountain, a baring of fangs, a screaming hiss or puff of dust like in the movies or the stories circulating on tightly controlled dark-web forums. Something, anything other than the monster just..

.sprawled akimbo, reflected endlessly on polished glass.

A soft mechanical chime sounded, the doors finished closing, and she had to reach the panel in time because getting caught in a box with a dead body was not in the plan.

Despite all the evidence her brother and Don had collected, Beatrice was suddenly, terribly unsure if she’d killed an actual monster. Which would mean she’d murdered a human being, an entirely different ethical dilemma.

Don’t panic. Stick to the goddamn plan. A cold, calm voice spoke up inside her head, and as usual, it sounded like so much like Jare she flinched.

The motion rolled her off the monster’s body, her hip hitting blue industrial carpet hard enough to bruise; she was scattering red crystal beads everywhere.

Cop forensics were going to have a field day with that.

Come on, Bebe. You had a good plan and executed the biggest chunk. Freeze now and it’s all over.

Her shoulder hit mirrored wall just under the buttons, another impact hard enough to hurt through a fluffy cotton padding of shock, and she used it as leverage to get numb feet underneath her.

For a moment she’d been certain the monster was going to shake off the stake and bite her, drain her like a juice box, and her extremities weren’t entirely sure how that had not happened.

“Right kind of wood after all,” she heard someone whisper.

The cracked, singsong little voice was her own, and she would be able to laugh about that later, how all the arguing over what the stake should be made out of had landed on the proper choice.

Considering it had only happened after Bea literally threw up her hands and told Don to just flip a fucking coin, get whatever, she wasn’t the one with the fucking folklore fetish.

Besides, I’m stronger than I look. She blindly muscled her way to standing, peered at the panel, and punched the roof access button.

A private box, going all the way up to the top floor where she suspected ‘Chris Everly’ had a penthouse, given how the blueprints they’d been able to get their hands on were arranged.

So much research was useless until it came time for one tiny, critical detail to save your ass. The elevator began to rise.

Bea gingerly braced one red Saratrava stiletto heel between the monster’s legs; he’d really fallen in the best way possible, and his arm had somehow ended up underneath her stupid head so she didn’t get a concussion from banging the floor.

All in all, she was luckier than she had ever thought possible, and maybe all the bad stuff before was so this particular moment would pay off? That was an interesting philosophical—

Ohshit did he twitch?

“Jesus!” Her shoulder hit the wall again, hard; she slid down, landing on one knee with a fresh deep crimson-purple flare of ignored pain. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. She finally decided he wasn’t moving, it was only the elevator’s motion and her eyes playing tricks.

Criminals got jumpy after a murder; she could now confirm monster hunters did as well.

Another pleasant mechanical ding, the elevator just doing its job, and the doors opened with a businesslike whoosh.

Bending over to tug the monster’s legs straight was unpleasant since it made the rest of the body rock slightly, but the limbs were still supple and the longer she could put this box out of commission, the better.

Lead time to escape was a priority—were there cameras up here?

Didn’t matter, she was undoubtedly captured on a few, getting into the elevator with ‘Chris Everly’.

Still, so far as she and Don could tell there weren’t any electronic eyes in the private lift, and that was a bonus.

Now she had to get out of the building with a minimum of evidence.

Bea staggered from the square of golden light spilling onto the roof, Saratravas making soft sweet sounds, bead-strings swaying.

Frigid October wind moaned between HVAC hoods and other hunched metal shapes; this high up the rush of air was probably constant even on calm days.

At least it wasn’t raining. Yet.

If ‘Chris Everly’ wasn’t a monster, what kind of guy would bring what he thought was a completely drunk stranger all the way up to his penthouse?

Sure, she’d flirted him into it, but that wasn’t an excuse.

Bea was well within her rights even if he was just a date-raping piece of shit.

When they arrested her, she could claim both insanity and self-defense, especially if a defense lawyer would use the footage from Jared’s house.

Your Honor, my client had reason to believe the victim was a vampire.

A brand-new legal precedent; she’d go down in history.

You know he’s not human. The evidence was incontrovertible—the property records, the pictures, the yellowing newsprint Don and Jared had pulled up when researching ‘Everly’, the records from the monster’s previous lives—always rich, always strange, the whole Chicago thing, disappearing after a bloody mass murder—and to top it all off, the security footage from just outside the stable.

After Jared’s death Don was more than convinced, though Bea was pretty sure he never thought she’d actually go through with this part of the plan.

The wind was a wall of knives. Teeth chattering, she groped along concrete facing, her dyed-black hair doing its level best to cover her face. The two silver clips were long gone—had she dropped them in the elevator?

Don’t care. Keep moving. Bea’s fingertips found a vertical metal handle. She yanked with terrific strength, absurdly afraid that this next-to-last part of the plan had somehow gone wrong, and nearly went flat on her ass when the fire door opened easily.

Unlocked after all, because monthly inspections were due any day now. Another case of Beatrice paying attention to minutiae other people considered boring, though there was nobody nearby to be amazed at her halfass criminal prowess.

The learning curves for supervillains and monster hunters were no doubt steeply parallel. Bea choked on a small, forlorn laugh. No matter what else, she’d accomplished this much. Her brother was avenged and she’d removed a great evil from the world.

Hadn’t she?

The stairwell was dark as the grave and cold as fuck, though she was distinctly relieved to get out of the wind. Bea’s palms slipped on chilly metal banister as she felt her way down, so feverish the thought of crouching to rest her forehead against it sounded wonderful.

“Keep moving,” she mumbled, echoing Jared’s voice in her head. “Just keep moving, that’s the thing.”

The stake had gone in cleanly. All the way through, though?

Or could you just wiggle it into the pericardium and that was good enough?

The ribs were the bitch, really. She could make a little song about that—a blues number, a lone guitar giving a chop or two behind her while she wailed about practice sending big sharpened dowels into sides of half-frozen beef.

You must have done it right. Maybe he’ll poof once the sun rises—does that door face east? Worry about that later.

Descent took far longer than she ever could have imagined, the lightless well full of murmuring echoes.

Bea counted stairs and landings as best she could, feeling along the wall side of every turn with her right foot.

Eventually she nearly tripped over the backpack, and the thought that she might break her own fool neck falling in the darkness was so grimly hilarious she crouched, clinging to the banister, and broke into a fit of sobbing laughter which did not echo only because she buried her mouth in the crook of her elbow, muffling the sound.

She’d practiced changing with her eyes closed, but it was a different thing entirely to perform while shivering, listening to the wind rattling a fire door several flights above, and expecting at any moment the blare of alarms—or worse.

You’re half-naked in a stairwell after murdering something that looks like a man, dare I ask what could be worse?

“Easy, you smug sonofabitch,” Bea whispered. “That door opening.”

The trouble was having to know stinking little green men in loincloths and centuries-old bloodsuckers with dark eyes, sandy hair, and a penchant for three-piece suits existed.

Once those became facts, all sorts of other things started to sound plausible, from Sasquatch to aliens, Hookhand to staircases in the woods.

Bea buttoned her jeans and let out a shaky sigh of relief.

Her knee stung—she’d scraped it somehow, either in landing on the elevator floor or tripping over a monster’s legs.

Really, the way the guy dressed was painful.

Too young to be so retro, though if you didn’t know he was a bloodsucking monster she supposed it would have been kind of charming except for that haircut.

Even the conversation had been nearly flawless—he was a helluva flirt, though with a laughably East Coast prep-boy accent, and Bea had been surprised at her own wisecracks, the lingering eye contact.

Her college friends would be proud; Sami and Felicia had given her endless lessons in how attractive self-confidence could be, how she didn’t have to shoot herself in the foot by assuming no guy would ever want Jared Dunlevy’s silly little sister.

She’d done both her former besties proud, catching a monster’s eye, pretending to be fascinated, reeling him in.

All while the cold iron of hatred burned her chest and her heart triphammered, seeing that unmistakable profile again.

Even if she hadn’t glimpsed him crouching over Jared’s body in person, she’d gone over the footage from the camera mounted on that post outside the old deteriorating stable so often his face was burned into memory.

He was a little different in living color, but that just made it easier to pretend, to play the game.

Girl, you’re one hell of an actress. He bought it...a little too well, but he bought it.

That was the problem. It had gone without a hitch, almost as if he understood the plan.

Every conversational turn, every shy smile, every half-simulated gulp of domestic white wine served because the pre-Halloween party was for business networking instead of real fun, all had been perfectly answered.

Like a well-rehearsed dance number, as a matter of fact.

She tied the hightop black sneakers by touch, stuffed the Saratravas into the backpack atop the crumpled dress, and followed them with the bra. If she was going to be arrested or chased down the stairs by an angry bloodsucking thing, she would at least die unconstrained.

Get moving. She closed her eyes, breathed a quick Hail Mary fulla grace like Don was always doing, and stood, settling backpack straps over her shoulders.

Her thumb found a black plastic switch; she pressed it, heard the click loud and clear.

When she opened one eye, cautiously, she found the flashlight worked.

The single small beam of light did wonders for her nerves. Even the far-above fire door’s rattling was somehow muted, driven back by the fact that she could now see painted concrete, the rough antislip strips on the stairs, the dimensions of the landing she had thankfully not fallen off.

You’ve got this far, you’re doing great. Let’s go.

“Get this circus rolling,” she whispered, and set off down the stairs.

Only forty more floors to go, then she could slip along a short corridor to another set of elevators—for internal business-tenant travel, and bound to be far less luxurious than the one she’d allowed herself to be ‘persuaded’ into when the monster said, Would you like to see something special?

Well, she had. In that the night was an unqualified success, amen and yes ma’am, as Jared might say.

Bea gasped in great jagged gulps, black rubber waterproof flashlight in one aching fist, her other hand wanting to convulsively squeeze the banister every few steps.

She forced her fingertips to glide, counted to twenty over and over inside her head, and struggled to get her lungs under control so she wouldn’t be wheezing in the next elevator she had to endure. She felt a lot like throwing up.

But it was done.