CHAPTER 4
Quinn polished another glass and slid it onto the rack over her head. “Come on Quinn, no one has done that in fifteen years,” Angie complained as she dropped a case of beer on top of the bar.
“All the more reason to do it now,” Quinn said and slid the next glass into place.
It was a ridiculous thing to do, no matter how much time she took, she would have to leave here eventually, and she suspected the strange group would still be lurking outside, waiting for her. She didn’t like the idea of fighting with them, she didn’t harm humans, and she sure didn’t want to tangle with that man. She hadn’t given him the full force of her power earlier, but unlike the other vampires she’d killed with it, she had a feeling he would still be standing if she did completely latch onto him.
Ugh, she’d never been a chicken before; however, there was something entirely off putting about him. She hated this cowardice, but even as she cursed it, she began to polish another glass while Angie restocked the cooler.
“This is what happens when you never get laid,” Angie muttered.
Quinn shot her a look, but she didn’t offer up a witty retort. Angie didn’t know anything about her history, they were friends, but Quinn would never reveal that to anyone. They’d run screaming from her if they ever knew the truth. She slid another glass onto the rack over her head as a knock sounded on the front door.
“We’re closed!” she called out. “Did you remember to lock it?”
Angie paused with two bottles of beer in her hand. “I don’t remember.”
“Angie,” she moaned.
“Hey, if you hadn’t decided to turn into Mrs. Clean we could have been out of here by now.”
Angie’s point was good enough to suppress any further complaints from Quinn. “I’ll make sure it’s locked,” she said as she dropped her rag on the bar and walked around the end of it toward the door.
Through the window of glass on the front door, she could see the hulking figure of someone huddled within their jacket. Her hands went to her apron pocket; she tugged her keys free as she caught a whiff of something more than human outside the door. Power wafted from whoever stood out there. The scent of it reminded her of cayenne peppers, potent yet almost pleasant. It had the strange effect of pricking her hunger and causing her fangs to tingle.
She fought constantly against her volatile and lethal nature, but she couldn’t deny that the power right outside the doors was nearly as enticing to her ability as the human blood she denied herself every day. It wasn’t as potent as it had been from the vampire who had been here earlier. She may be able to take this one in a fight, but not in front of Angie.
The doorknob began to rattle when she was halfway across the bar. “We’re closed!” she called out again but she knew, before she took another step, it didn’t matter.
She slid her keys back into her pocket and rested her hand on the small wooden stake she kept tucked into a holder against her waist. The black shorts she wore were part of her uniform but they hid her weapons well, as did the nearly knee high black boots she wore.
She hoped to avoid having to stake the vampire in front of Angie, but she might not have a choice. The knob on the door turned, then it thrust open forcefully. Her gaze locked onto a pair of surprisingly beautiful turquoise eyes; however, all attractiveness about the man standing across from her ended there. His hawkish nose was over large and crooked to the side, his eyebrows so bushy they had become a solid unibrow. His thin lips pressed into a disapproving frown she suspected might be permanent.
His lips pulled back to reveal his glistening fangs, eliminating any doubt she might have had as to why he was here. Judging by the power radiating from him, he was older than her. She had no idea what ability he had, but then he was just as clueless about what she could do too. He’d come here thinking he would win an easy battle with a younger vamp, but he’d encountered a war.
“We’re closed mister,” Angie said from behind the bar.
His gaze didn’t even flicker toward her. The glass bottles Angie placed into the cooler clattered together, it was the only sound in the hushed room. Quinn’s fingers tingled, she had to keep this guy away from her friend, and keep Angie from witnessing something that would alter her life forever and thrust her existence into jeopardy.
“It’s ok, Ang. This is an, ah, old friend of mine,” she lied and badly.
Angie gave a small snort but all noise behind Quinn ceased when Angie stopped moving. In the three years Quinn had been working here, she’d never once said she knew a person or mentioned a friend. The only thing she’d revealed about her past was to say her family had been killed in a car accident and she liked to move around.
One revelation was a lie, and the other one a half-truth. Before coming here, she’d moved around a lot but because she had to, not because she liked it. She’d hated living out of a box from one town to the next and one crappy apartment to the next, but there were no other options, not for her.
“You can take off, Angie. I’ll finish up here,” she said. She tugged the stake free of its holder and palmed it as she continued to smile at unibrow. “We have some ah… catching up to do.”
“Are you sure?” She’d expected Angie to bolt out of here like an Olympic runner off the line, but she heard the concern in her friend’s voice.
“Yeah it’s fine.” She didn’t dare tear her gaze away from the vamp across from her to look at Angie. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
A small huff of laughter escaped the vampire as his gaze traveled to Angie. His deep brown hair glimmered in the few lights left on in the bar. Tall and thin, he didn’t look like much; she knew how deceptive appearances could be when it came to the vampire world though. “You could always join us.” His tone of voice made her skin crawl.
“We have far too much catching up to do,” Quinn replied.
“Are you sure you’re going to be ok, Quinn?” Angie inquired.
“I’ll be fine.” And if not I simply won’t see you tomorrow, she thought but kept the forced smile on her face.
“Ok then, have a good night.”
The material of Angie’s apron whispered when she dropped it on the bar. Her friend fluffed her hair as she walked toward them. “Maybe I can find the after party,” she said brightly.
“I’m sure you can,” Quinn assured her.
Angie flashed her a smile as she made her way out the door and closed it behind her. In the hush that descended over the bar, Quinn could hear the hum of the motors in the coolers behind the bar and the distant tick of the clock in the poolroom. The ticks of the seconds continued onward until the hush stretched into a full minute.
“You’re young,” he finally said. It was faint but she detected the hint of an Irish brogue in his tone.
Quinn gave a brief bow of her head as she gripped the stake tighter and braced her legs apart. She’d been knocked on her ass once before by a vampire who could wield electricity, but she was prepared for that now. If he was capable of wielding electricity he might give her a shock, but it wouldn’t launch her across the room like last time.
Quinn had no words for him. He tried to lift one eyebrow, because they were attached both of them went up. “But you’re powerful. Where does so much power come from I wonder?” The question was about her, but it hadn’t been directed at her. She could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he tried to figure out what she was. That would never happen. No vampire could ever predict or think it possible to come across the likes of her. “How many people have you killed in your short life?”
“I’m not a killer,” she growled.
He held his hands out before him. “We’re all killers, child.”
“Not all of us,” she murmured.
“Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night? You are a killer.”
An unsettling feeling began to twist inside her stomach. Vampires spouted lies; she knew. By nature, every vampire was a liar, including herself. They were forced to hide from the day,
forced to fit into a human world where they would be killed if people ever knew what they were. Every day she pretended she wasn’t a monster, but no matter how much she pretended, she knew the truth. She drank blood, the sun had shunned her when she’d died, and if any human ever learned the truth about her they would leave a person-sized hole in the wall when they fled from her.
She may not sustain her existence by the senseless murdering of random humans, but she was a monster. She awoke with that realization every day and went to sleep with it every night.
“I don’t kill innocents,” she told him.
“Who are you to judge what others do?”
Quinn put more of her weight into her toes so she could react faster. “I don’t judge; I simply know the difference between right and wrong.”
“Ah such a foolish child,” he murmured. “You will learn. Passing by, we sensed you from outside.” We? The word caused the hair on her neck to rise. “I’m here because you would be better off with a group of vampires than on your own, especially now that we’ve all been left so vulnerable by the death of The Elders. Something that also left you vulnerable.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about vampire politics.”
“You should,” he purred as he folded his hands into the sleeves of the loose fitting shirt he wore. It was a gesture meant to make him appear less intimidating; she wasn’t fooled by it. He would be on her in a heartbeat if she let her guard down. “The oldest of the remaining vampires are beginning to regroup. We’re trying to regain the power stripped from us by The Commission, Hunters and Guardians so we can protect ourselves from them.”
“The Commission is also on the run,” she murmured. “I’ve heard the rumors.”
“What is left of them is, but those maniacs were never our biggest concern. They were humans playing God, but the Hunters and Guardians are creating a new force. One bent on destroying every vampire they come across.”
“That’s always been their mission,” she couldn’t help but say, despite her determination not to believe one word this man uttered.
“But they’ve grown stronger and more hostile now.”
Quinn pondered his words before responding. “I’m sure they are but I can’t help you. I only have six vampire years on me; nowhere near enough to be considered an Elder. Sorry you wasted your time coming in here.”
“You could never be a waste of my time, child. Every vampire is special, and they should all be brought into the fold.”
He sounded like the leader of a cult, one she wanted nothing to do with. “I’m not a fold kind of girl.”
That irritating smile curved his mouth again to reveal his fangs. “You think you have some kind of choice in this. Your power drew me here, others may not pick up on it, but I did.”
“I guess I’m just special.” She took a step away from him in order to get as much distance between them as possible in case he tried to electrocute her.
“Yes.” The way he purred the word made it one of the creepiest things she’d ever heard. “Yes, you are.”
Over the tick of the clock and the hum of the cooler, she heard a board squeak in the kitchen. She stiffened as she realized the ‘we’ he spoke of a moment ago had arrived through the backdoor. One of the kitchen doors swung open and the first of five more vamps stepped into the main barroom.
They wanted her alive, but what they wanted her alive for, and what they might force her to do, was more than enough for her to decide she’d prefer to be dead. Jerking her arm back, she let her stake fly with deadly accuracy at the first vamp who had walked through the swinging door.
She had no shot of hitting the one she’d been speaking with, but these five weren’t completely prepared for her. They would be now as the stake found its intended target and the vampire let out a howl. The stricken vamp fell back, his fingers grasped frantically at the stake embedded deep within his heart. Even if he pulled it free, it was too late for him; his life was over.
Without missing a step, she bent low and tugged the two remaining stakes from her boots. She wouldn’t be able to throw these, but if they got close enough to her she would make them rethink ever trying to touch her again. She rose back to her full height just as one of the others tossed aside their dead friend and hefted a barstool over his head. Quinn spun away from the chair hurtled at her with so much speed it was mostly a blur even to her enhanced vision.
Her deft movement kept her from taking a direct hit, but she was unable to avoid the stool completely. It felt as if the leg of the stool had actually crashed straight into her bone instead of a layer of her muscle, fat and skin first. A small grunt escaped her; the force of the stool caused her to stagger forward a few steps.
She regained her balance quickly, but not quick enough to escape the grabbing hands of a burly vampire. What would have been considered a beer gut if he were human hung over his belt, but this was most likely a blood gut.
He jerked her toward him with one, harsh tug. Adrenaline and her instinctual need to survive caused her ability to kick in of its own volition, with far more deadly ferocity than she was used to. The sensation of tentacles, or perhaps suckers, shooting from her body to grab hold of his hand filled her. She didn’t actually grow tentacles, but she’d always pictured her power like an octopus grabbing hold of someone while the suction cups drained them of their life force.
His chipmunk cheeks shrank, his ruddy skin took on a grayish hue, and all of the color leached from his face. A startled cry of agony escaped him. She could feel him trying to jerk his hand away, but once the tentacles took hold they were impossible to break free from until she released them.
Blood Gut’s brown eyes bulged, his mouth hung open in disbelief as he continued to shrink in size. The whites of his eyes were yellow when they rolled back into his head. His now ninety-pound, saggy body dropped to the floor like a crumpled skeleton. It had been six years since she’d required air to breathe, but she still found herself gasping for breath when he finally fell away from her.
She bent over, shaking as she fought the influx of power surging through her body. Her ability had been weakened by the interaction, but his life force kicked around in her body like a ghost in a haunted house. This unsettled and jumpy feeling inside of her was one of the many reasons she tried not to completely drain the life force from someone.
A little snap to get them to let go, or to ensnare them for a few seconds within her trap was usually enough time for her to be able to stake them or warn them off. But she was outnumbered now with only two stakes left on her. Her best option had been to show them what she could do, hope they stayed back afterward, and that they didn’t suspect her power had been drained by the interaction. If they were looking to kill her this would have been an entirely different scenario, but thankfully this group meant to keep her alive, for now.
She had enough power left in her to give one more of them a good blast, but from the looks on their faces, she didn’t think they were going to take one step closer to her. They stared at her with gaping mouths and bugged out eyes. The only one who didn’t look about to turn and run was the first one who had entered. The smile on his face brought to mind a praying mantis hunched over its prey.
“It’s you.” Out of everything she’d expected to come from his mouth, those words were the farthest from her mind. “We’ve been looking all over for you. This worked out much better than I’d ever anticipated.”
Her head spun as she tried to process his words. “Who’s been looking all over for me?”
He didn’t get a chance to respond as another sound drew her attention around the corner of the poolroom and to the kitchen doors. The blond vampire from earlier and the humans gathered around him stood behind the other vampires. The human’s gazes were riveted upon the sack of skin and bones lying at her feet. The blond vampire and an older man with glasses were the only ones looking at her. The human looked completely fascinated as his gaze ran over her.
It didn’t matter what they thought of
her; her eyes remained locked upon the assessing ice blue eyes of the vampire she’d interacted with earlier. He knew what she could do now, knew a little of what she’d done to him earlier, but instead of looking infuriated, fascinated or even slightly terrified, a smile began to curve the corner of his full mouth.