Fatal Harmony
The Vein Chronicles #1
By Anne Malcom
Copyright 2017 Anne Malcom
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away.
Cover Design: Simply Defined Art
Edited by: Hot Tree Editing
Cover image Copyright 2017
Interior design and formatting: Champagne Formats
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Other Books
Acknowledgements
About the Author
To my readers, who took a chance on me and gave me everything.
I hope you’re ready to take another chance on a sarcastic chick with fangs.
EVERY STORY HAS AN ANTAGONIST and a protagonist. Hero and villain. Good and evil. Yada, yada, yada. Thing is, I bet in each story the villain doesn’t consider themselves the epitome of evil. Even the evilest of minds have justification for their acts. They’re the hero of their own story; it just depends on where you stand.
I gingerly stepped my Louboutin out of the ever-increasing pool of blood at my feet, wiping my mouth delicately with the silk kerchief I carried for situations such as this. The man stared at me, his eyes glassy, the empty stare of the recently dead. The wound was still gushing. I probably could’ve continued the meal, but what can I say? I was on a diet.
I shook my head at the pants around his ankles, showing off his less-than-stellar package.
“A death you’re worthy of, Stan,” I informed the corpse lightly.
He continued to stare.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who got his jollies attacking women. Should’ve expected one would return the favor sooner or later.”
I took my phone from my Celine.
“Cleanup on aisle twelve,” I greeted the bored-sounding voice, looking around distractedly at a drunken group of women stumbling past the mouth of the alley.
Any one of them could have ended their night with Stan groping them, likely giving them scars that would never heal. I got my entrée and did my bit for mankind.
I’m a philanthropist. Someone get me a Nobel Prize.
“Isla? Shit. Seriously? Another alley job?” the voice perked up, going from bored to fan girl in two-point-five seconds.
I inspected my nails while I walked towards the end of the alley, my heels clicking against the concrete.
“Hey, Scott.” I tried to stay patient. It was hard. Patience and bagged blood were two things I wasn’t hot on. But Scott was harmless really, like those puppies that humped your leg. It was frowned upon to kick said puppies, so I had to practice the feeble human emotion of patience. He was still getting used to his new world. He was young; another hundred years or so and he might be vaguely bearable. I could deal with the humping puppy for a mere hundred years. Maybe.
“Isla! You gotta take me with you next time. I’ll be, like, the best student ever. You won’t even know I’m there. Wait, can I turn invisible? Is that a thing? Can you teach me? Then it’ll be like I’m really not there. You could do your thing and I’ll just be the watcher, taking it all in like a sponge,” he babbled.
Forget a hundred years. I’d be lucky if I didn’t stake him myself in the next ten seconds.
“Scott, focus. Dead human. In need of disposal so we don’t get humans and, in turn, the slayers on my pert ass,” I reminded him. Not that I was worried about the slayers—I could wipe the floor with them—but I’d just gotten a manicure and I didn’t want it ruined.
“Right, right, sorry,” he said quickly.
“Corner of Smith and Sunderland, dingy alley, terrible decorator, dead guy at the end of it. You can’t miss him,” I said. “Short, pants around his ankles, gaping neck wound, sideburns that should be illegal.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sending someone now.” His keyboard tapped in the background with frantic speed.
“Great,” I responded with only the teeniest bit of sarcasm. I scanned the street. It was reasonably deserted at three in the morning, just the odd taxi screaming past full of partyers dragging their inebriated bodies home. I could tell, since the one who hurtled past reeked of mojitos and the girls were babbling to each other about men who were assholes.
“Amen to that, sista,” I muttered under my breath.
“What?” Scott piped in.
Shit. I’d totally forgotten I was still on the phone with him. He didn’t hang up and treat me with coldness bordering on disgust like the rest of the dispatchers did. That was on account of the fact that my lifestyle fascinated instead of disturbed him. Give him time and education that half breeds didn’t get until they were turned. He’d come to despise me like the rest of my race and my family.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Scott,” I replied in a tight voice, directing myself to my cherry red convertible across the street.
I was strictly meant to blend in and not call attention to myself, but hey, why try to fit in when you were born to stand out? Or more accurately died and then came back to life as a bloodsucking monster created to stand out. Potato, potahto.
“Do you have someone with you? Like a sidekick?” he asked quickly.
I paused at the door to my car. “No. I fly solo. And don’t ever say the word ‘sidekick’ again,” I ordered.
I could practically taste his sigh of relief over the phone. “I can totally do that. Not say sidekick, I mean. Shit, wingman? ’Cause wingman seems totally more appropriate considering there’s this man I know who would like to be your wing.” He paused. “He’s me,” he clarified.
“Good-bye, Scott,” I said into the phone.
“But—”
I hung up before he could finish his no-doubt Pulitzer prize-winning sentence. Not that such a gesture would offend nor hamper him. The kid seemed to like it when I was a bitch to him. I shook my head and threw my bag on the passenger seat.
I should have probably been nicer to him; he just wanted to be my friend. Sidekick. I mentally cringed. I wasn’t exactly full to the brim in the friends department. Actually, that particular part of my life was decaying with cobwebs. I had one person on the entire planet who I could say with almost absolute certainty didn’t want me dead.
Well, at least not this century.
I pulled out of my parking space and hurtled back into the night, heading for my penthouse in Upper Manhattan.
Although I had plenty of others that were overflowing, one area of my life was lacking. In addition to my closet, there was my kickass apartment in New York, villa in Italy, ca
bin in Sweden—you get the picture. I was also gloriously attractive, had great fashion sense, and was forever frozen in my fashionable and attractive state. Immortality didn’t suck. Though I did. Har har.
“I’m hilarious. How do I not have friends chomping at the bit to have late-night hangs?” I asked myself.
Maybe because I talked to myself after snacking on a rapist.
More likely it was because the only particular humans I snacked on were of the disgusting variety. Dregs of society: murderers, child molesters, rapists. Scum that the world deserved to be rid of. I made sure every soul I took was one that was heading for a long, hot stay in the underworld.
I hoped the day would never come when my own immortality was snuffed out. There was no doubt I’d be heading to the underworld, and I’d be facing a lot of pissed-off vengeful douchebags when I got there.
A nice motivation to keep breathing. Or not breathing, as the case may be.
Plus, Chanel had a new collection coming out in a month.
My phone rang in the Bluetooth system of my car as I pulled into the underground parking of my building. I cringed at the caller ID.
“Why, God? Why?” I asked the almighty.
I got no answer, mainly because if the almighty was up there and gazing at my auburn head, he’d most likely be trying to figure out ways to smite it, abomination that I was.
“Mother,” I greeted through gritted teeth, maneuvering my way towards my parking space.
“Isla.” Her terse voice dripped with disapproval, regardless of the fact that she’d not even started speaking to me. Like the big man upstairs, my entire existence was a disapproval to her. She’d smite me in a second if she could.
“To what do I owe the displeasure?” I asked, pressing a button so the phone was to my ear as I got out of the car. “Let me guess, you want to book a spa day with me? Or perhaps go see the latest Nicholas Sparks movie?” I continued in a sickly sweet tone, my heels reverberating on the concrete in the deserted building.
There was a loaded pause at the other end of the phone. I could practically see my mother rubbing her temples together, even though she couldn’t get headaches. “I am calling to make sure you haven’t forgotten.” She spoke tightly, ignoring my previous words.
“Forgotten what? To floss? Don’t worry, Mom, dental care is my top priority. Gotta take care of my fangs,” I replied seriously, my brows knitting at the human I sensed rapidly approaching behind me.
Another pause. “You refuse to act with any semblance of maturity, nor show our race the respect it deserves, and you constantly sully our family name,” she said, her voice even.
“Gee, Mother, I do love your little pep talks,” I responded sweetly, stopping my journey to the elevators as I felt the presence behind me. I sighed, turning.
The human was dressed all in black, a black beanie yanked over shaggy, dirty hair. His eyes were darting around the empty lot, stubble obscuring half his face. He pointed a gun at my head.
“Give me all your money,” he demanded.
I stared at him, raising my brow, the only warning he was going to get.
My mother was oblivious to my current situation, though I bet she would have been pleased it was unfolding on the off chance that a garden variety mugger might be equipped with copper bullets and handy with a head shot. “You are expected at the event to—”
“Hold that thought, Mommy dearest. I’ve got the nicest man pointing a gun to my head right now,” I interrupted her, my voice bland.
“Bitch! I am not fucking around!” the man roared. “Give me your fucking purse, and those earrings.” He shook the gun at the direction of my head and my beautiful diamond earrings.
“Dude, you do not want to do this,” I warned.
“I’ll fucking shoot you. You want to die today?” he snarled.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m already dead,” I muttered, stepping forward and snapping his neck. It didn’t seem fast to me, but to his useless human eyes I would have been nothing but a blur. The blur would be the very last thing he saw on this earth.
I regarded the crumpled body. I probably shouldn’t have killed him. Yes, he was planning on mugging me, and potentially killing me—I could smell the rage and desperation leaving his lifeless body—but still. I normally researched the humans I killed, made sure they deserved to die, but I was cranky. My mother did that to me.
“I don’t have all night, Isla.” I could picture my mother tapping her foot.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” I told her, my gaze darting around to make sure no pesky witnesses would be a complication. I was slightly pissed off that this guy could even make it in here. We were in an upscale part of town and the security in this building was meant to be tight, yet a tweaker with a gun managed to get in. I’d be writing a strongly worded e-mail to the building manager on the morrow.
“Tomorrow night. The new king is holding a feast. It is imperative that you do not continue to besmirch the family name. Your presence will bring only slightly less shame than your absence,” she informed me coolly. Only my mother would call the monarch who’d been reigning for almost a century ‘new.’
I didn’t flinch at the venom in her tone. I’d been getting it for hundreds of years. A girl got used to it.
“Sorry, I think…” I pretended to pause. “Yep. I’m washing my hair tomorrow night. Say hey to the king for me,” I said breezily while I dragged the body of my would-be mugger to my car.
“If you do not come, your brothers will deliver the bodies of three dead children to your apartment at dawn. Children who will have died because of your disobedience,” she stated, as if she expected nothing less than my refusal.
I paused, my blood running cold. Colder, anyway. “Why?” I choked out. “Why don’t you just disown me? Instead of blackmailing me into attending events such as these every few decades?” My voice was devoid of any sarcasm or humor. My mother’s threat was not an idle one. I knew from experience.
“Because as much as I hate it, you are a Rominskitoff. One of the greatest families of our race. That name will always stick to you, no matter what I do. So I do what I must,” she snapped. “You know where it is. Dress appropriately,” she ordered before hanging up.
I sighed, sagging against the door of my car and dropping the body I’d been holding. It didn’t matter that I was hundreds of years old; I was still a slave to a psychotic mother. One who despised me. Along with most of my family, of course. I was surprised to hear they were even in the country. They hated America, found it tacky and vulgar. They usually stayed as far away as possible, hence my residence here. Their social climbing and power-hungry aspirations caused them to forget their hatred for the country, and for me as well, if I was being summoned to the gathering.
One I was loath to attend.
But I did not want to have three more bodies on my conscience that night. The death count was enough to damn me ten times over already.
“Fuck,” I hissed into the air.
Vampire politics. I wanted to stay out of it. Far away from it. But I was a member of one of the greatest families of our race. Despite the fact that I was a disappointment to not only that family, but my entire race. Change the record.
“Yo. Need another cleanup,” I sighed into the phone.
“Isla?” an overexcited voice greeted. “Another one? You’re busy tonight. What’s going on?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just another fun and exciting night in my world,” I muttered. “Get the cleanup crew to the basement of my apartment building. I really don’t need a murder investigation fucking up my night any more than my mother already has.”
I heard the tapping of keys. “On it.”
For once he didn’t babble, didn’t ask questions. I was grateful for it.
“Thanks, kid. They got no one else manning the phones tonight?” I asked, unsure of why I was even making conversation with my not-so-secret admirer.
“No. I mean, yes, but I kind of… reque
sted your calls,” he stammered shyly.
I looked to the roof for patience. Though I should’ve been looking to the ground.; the king of the underworld was going to be the one granting me favors, not his estranged daddy. “Of course you did.”
New vampires, especially half breeds with no connections to the old families, were given menial jobs in our public sector. Jobs like manning the phones at the cleanup centers. Manning the cleanup crews themselves. Doing the dirty work of the so-called superior families, or older vampires who had clawed their way up the aristocratic totem pole. It was a shitty job. One Scott seemed to think was the freaking best thing on the planet. I seriously wondered if he was the first vampire to be born missing a chromosome.
“I meant what I said. I want to help. Learn from you. Do what you do,” he pleaded in my ear.
Maybe because I had just been verbally lashed by the reptile that was my mother, I was feeling unusually charitable. Or maybe I was feeling uncharitable to said mother.
“You free tomorrow night?” I asked with a grin.
Scott’s response was in the realm of excited teenager at a One Direction concert.
After I hung up, I looked down at the dead guy and grinned. Mom was going to hate him. Perfect.
“Stop fidgeting,” I commanded Scott as we walked through the opulent double doors of an ostentatious mansion on the outskirts of New York.
He immediately stopped yanking his shirtsleeves. “Sorry,” he muttered sheepishly.
I glared at him. “Don’t fucking apologize, to anyone. You’re a vampire, for Lucifer’s sake. Act like it.”
He swallowed. “Sorry.” He paused. “I mean—”
I waved my hand to shut him up.
He pursed his lips and moved his head, his eyes turning to survey the room. They popped out in amazement. “Holy shit,” he exclaimed.
I rolled my eyes, already regretting my choice of date. I guessed to his sparkly new vampire eyes, the grandeur of the place was something. Something incredibly tacky. They had strung up various tapestries, centuries old and blood-red, of course. Everything was blood-red—the tablecloths, the waiter’s outfits, the fricking carpet. I wrinkled my nose in distaste and immediately snagged a glass of champagne off a tray that was coming past me. I avoided the red liquid that was mixed with the champagne, my stomach turning at where it came from. Definitely not free-range blood.