There it was. She felt it catch through her fingers. The mechanism gave way to the gentle pressure she exerted, and the lock turned. Halle-fucking-lujah.
Blowing out a heartfelt sigh, she kissed the pieces of her lucky hairpin and tucked them with the second hairpin, in the pocket of her pants. Then she collected the jug of water and packet of food. She might be miles from anywhere and facing a stiff hike, and she would need to eat and drink soon.
Stepping out of the cell, she ran the flashlight’s thin beam of light around the immediate area. As she did so, she realized there was more than one cell. With a sense of dread, she counted a total of four barred doors, although she was relieved to see the other cells were empty, their doors standing open. Two of the cells had thick manacles chained to the walls. To her left, the roughly hewn tunnel simply ended a few feet beyond the small cellblock.
These four cells were the end destination. But why carve them so deeply into the earth that not even a hint of light penetrated? What kind of creatures had Justine held captive down here?
Vampyres. She trapped Vampyres.
Shuddering, Melly turned her back on the cells and started down the tunnel. The going was a bit trickier than she had anticipated. The rocky floor felt rough and uneven under her thin-soled flats, and she had to keep the flashlight trained on the ground so she could see where to put her feet. She couldn’t afford to add a sprained ankle to her other injuries.
After leaving the cellblock, she quickly reached the end of the tunnel, where she found another barred door that opened into another corridor. Like the other empty cells, this door was unlocked, propped open with a fist-sized rock.
Choosing to go left or right in the new corridor had no meaning to her, so she shrugged and went right. As she ran into a fork in the hulking rock, she chose right again, and soon her tunnel intersected yet another corridor.
This time she decided to stay with the tunnel she was already in. Disturbed at how large the tunnel system appeared to be, she kept count of her choices – two rights and across – in case she reached another dead end and needed to backtrack.
After going so long where the only sounds she heard were the ones she made, her sensitive ears picked up a distant… something.
What was that? It sounded like a shuffling, or a scraping sound. Cocking her head, she tried to identify it, but she couldn’t imagine what would make such a noise.
The sound seemed to grow louder as she went, or maybe she drew closer to it. It was definitely shuffling. Or scraping. Or both?
And there was light up ahead. To be sure, she turned off her flashlight and saw that the darkness up ahead was broken by some kind of illumination that seemed to flicker. As her eyes adjusted, she moved forward cautiously. At the same time, a whiff of air stirred down the tunnel, bringing with it a stench that made her grimace. It smelled like garbage, or meat that had gone bad.
The flickering light up ahead grew stronger, and after a few more steps, her tunnel ended at a massive, cave-like room.
The light came from several torches, set into old, iron sconces.
The shuffling, scraping sounds came from a mass of creatures that were crouched in the middle of the cave. They were… they were…
For a moment her mind refused to process what she was seeing. Her heart knew better, though, and it kicked into an accelerated rhythm.
The crouching creatures were human shaped and dressed in filthy-looking, ragged clothes. As she sucked in a breath of the stinking air, a few of the creatures lifted their heads to look at her. Their eyes flashed red in the torchlight, and their mouths were dark with what looked like blood.
One of them sniffed at the air, its lips peeled back from long fangs that glinted a wicked white in the torchlight. She caught a glimpse of the supine forms the creatures surrounded. One of the unmoving bodies wore jeans and sneakers. Another wore a pencil-thin skirt and a single high-heeled pump, the other foot sadly bare.
“Oohhh,” Melly whispered. “Shit.”
As more of the creatures turned to look at her and sniff the air, they let out a collective sigh. “Aaaaahhhh.”
One stood upright and took a step toward her.
Whirling, she flicked on her flashlight and ran.
Panic lent her wings. From behind, she heard growls and snarling, and the sounds of many feet hitting the hard, cold floor, as the group of creatures gave chase.
Creatures. Vampyres.
Only they were Vampyres like Melly had never seen before. Stripped of civilized courtesies, cleanliness or manners, they were bestial and feral.
Forget the rough floor, or going carefully.
If you fall, you’re dead, Melly. So don’t you fucking fall.
The beam of light from the flashlight she clenched in one fist flashed wildly. Her breath sawed in her throat, and the abused muscles in her injured leg flared with pain as she pushed her body as hard as she could.
Across the corridor. Left at the fork. Then left again. They sounded closer. How close were they? She didn’t dare look behind her. It would slow her down.
There, up ahead, was the barred door at the opening of the cellblock tunnel, propped open with the rock. She leaped at it.
Wonder of wonders, she still had the jug of water and packet of food under one arm. Taking the end of the small flashlight between her teeth, she grabbed the door and hauled it shut with a loud clang. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of the horde just yards away. Please gods, let the closed door buy her a few more seconds.
Whirling, she pelted down the tunnel and lunged into her cell. All the cell doors opened inward. Letting the water and food fall where it would, she slammed the door shut, yanked out her makeshift lock pick and with shaking fingers dug into the lock.
Please please please please.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could just barely see down to the tunnel’s end. The feral Vampyres clawed the tunnel gate open and raced toward her.
She gave the pick in the lock a final, desperate twist. Even as the tumbler inside the lock turned, the piece of hairpin bent.
Sobbing, she threw herself backward as the Vampyres reached her cell and tried to snatch her through the bars. Claws raked down her left forearm, and she stumbled and fell. Jarred from her teeth, the flashlight bounced along the floor. The thin, cold beam of light flashed over fangs, arms straining toward her between the bars of the cell door, and bloody, distorted faces.
There were so many of them. Dozens, well over a hundred.
Over the sound of the Vampyre’s snarling, she became aware of the high, almost inaudible whimpering sound she made as she tried to catch her breath, and she made herself stop. Rolling stiffly onto her hands and knees, she gathered together the water jug, the food packet, and the flashlight.
She had dropped the bent piece of hairpin, but she didn’t bother to look for it. It had fallen somewhere too close to the cell door and those deadly, groping hands. If the Vampyres wandered off, she could look for it then and see if it was salvageable.
Clutching her meager possessions, she scooted backward until her shoulder blades connected to the wall opposite the cell door. Then she slid along the wall sideways until she reached a corner. It didn’t give her any more distance or safety from the Vampyres, but she needed to brace herself against the steadiness of the two walls.
After she set down her supplies, she crawled over to the cot, grabbed one end and dragged it to her corner. It was probably made from aluminum, and it was as lightweight and flimsy as it looked. It bounced along the floor until she reached her corner again.
She flashed the light over the Vampyres still straining to reach her. Unlike the cheap cot, the cell door was strong and heavy, and it held solid against their combined weight.
Halle-fucking-lujah.
She grabbed the scratchy, wool blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Upending the cot onto its side, she pulled it close until the ends connected with the walls of her corner, and she sat inside the triangle it made.
/> Childish? Possibly. Certainly it didn’t serve any better purpose other than giving her the thinnest of fragile psychological barriers to hide behind, but hey, it had been a truly rotten night, and right now she would take any positives she could lay her hands on.
Patting the edge of the cot, she took several deep breaths.
Then she turned off her flashlight. It was even more important to conserve the batteries as much as possible now.
She did end up getting an answer to one question. Now she knew where she was.
For decades, she had heard stories of the tunnels that ran underneath San Francisco. In the 1990s, when she and Julian had been at the hottest part of their scorching affair, Julian had taken Nightkind troops to burn out a nest of them that had gathered below the city. Melly had spent a sleepless night, aching for him to return.
Vampyres turned feral when they fed often enough from drug-addicted humans. She would have thought that fact alone would be all the detriment they needed to keep from doing it, but as Julian had told her, human problems didn’t just vanish when one became a Vampyre.
If they were an alcoholic or a drug addict as a human, they still had those cravings as a Vampyre, only then neither alcohol nor drugs had any direct effect. Not only did Vampyres need human blood for sustenance, they needed blood as a carrying agent.
They could only get drunk from feeding from humans who were inebriated, and they could only get high from humans who were high. And Julian never could keep the tunnels completely clear. The ferals always came back eventually.
Melly was in the tunnels, somewhere underneath San Francisco.
The feral Vampyres kept making incoherent, snarling noises and trying to get to her through the cell door for a very long time. She pulled one corner of the blanket over her head.
Rocking, she whispered, “Mom’s going to be so pissed when she finds out.”
She huddled in on herself, until the warmth from the rough blanket took away the chill of shock that had set in. Then she turned on the light again and inspected her packet of food.
Food, ha. Her lip curled. Someone had picked up a few random items at a gas station. There were a couple of packets of jerky, a bag of mixed nuts and a couple of candy bars. Still, it was calories and better than nothing. She would have been really worried about her relative worth if they hadn’t given her any food at all.
Opening a packet of jerky, she chewed each bite slowly and thoroughly, sucking every bit of taste and satisfaction she could out of it. While it didn’t fill the gnawing hole in her belly, at least it was something. While she had a terrible sweet tooth and wanted one of the candy bars badly, Justine’s words echoed in her mind.
Most likely bring more food and water.
She didn’t dare eat anything else, because she had no idea how long she needed to make what she had last. Firmly, she set aside the food and opened her bottle of water to drink only what she felt she absolutely needed.
After that, she got to work again.
Inspecting her cot, she found the mechanics of it were simple. It folded in the middle and sat on four legs that were hinged so they could be folded against the bottom of the frame. After studying the legs, she narrowed her eyes at the Vampyres still straining at the bars of her cage.
Taking hold of one of the legs, she bent it against the hinge, back and forth, until the hinge broke. Hefting the aluminum piece, she stood and walked over to the bars to stand just outside the reach of those grasping hands. As she walked up and down in front of the Vampyres, she watched and waited…
Until there. That one.
Moving fast, she darted forward to snatch the wrist of one of the Vampyres and yank on it as hard as she could.
Snarling, the Vampyre’s body slammed against the bars of the cage.
In that same moment, Melly struck, stabbing her makeshift stake into the Vampyre’s chest. It wasn’t easy. The cot leg didn’t have a sharp enough point, so she had to throw her weight into driving the tip through the Vampyre’s chest wall. If she had been less fit or a human woman, she might not have been able to do it.
As it was, she felt the tip break through the hard chest plate and slide into the soft flesh underneath. The sensation made her stomach roil.
Heart pounding, she threw herself backward before any of the others could grab hold of her, while the Vampyre she staked shuddered and collapsed into dust.
Shivering and breathing hard, Melly looked at all the others. They watched her in return, red eyes glowing in the beam of her flashlight.
One down.
Three
T
he first rosy blush of sunrise was beginning to peek over rolling hills when Julian arrived at the Light Fae Queen’s palatial home in west Bel Air. Another quintessential California residence, her mansion was elegant, old Hollywood.
He knew from memory the open-style entertaining rooms that graced the ground floor, with French doors that opened to extensive manicured gardens filled with flowerbeds surrounding an immense swimming pool. Tatiana loved to entertain, and she had volunteered to host many political functions over the last ninety years.
Yolanthe had tried to insist upon accompanying him, but he had vetoed that idea. He wanted her to stay on point on the search for Justine, so he took a few of his personal guards instead.
He had flown into LAX on the Nightkind government jet. The town car that Tatiana had reserved for him was specifically modified for Vampyres’ use, with dark, treated windows that blocked out harmful UV rays.
As soon as the car slowed to a stop in front of the Queen’s residence, his guards donned the protective gear that all Vampyres needed to wear if they chose to go out during the daytime – clothes made of material that specifically blocked UV light and that covered every inch of their bodies, leather gloves, hoods to cover their faces and heads, and dark glasses. The effect was sinister, but unavoidable.
Unprotected, their movements and actions would soon be severely hampered by daylight, so the guards were following standard procedure, but Julian was under no such edict. Since it was a short distance from the town car to the house, and the sun had not yet crested over the eastern hills, he didn’t bother to don full protective gear. Instead, he grabbed a cloak in one hand and made for the wide, double front doors. His guards fell into step on either side of him.
Before Julian had a chance to knock, two Light Fae guards opened the doors, dressed in their signature blue and tan uniforms. They had clearly been watching for his arrival.
One guard led him toward the rear of the house, to a large, familiar family-style living room.
In the doorway, Julian jerked a halt. “There has to be somewhere else I can wait.”
“Sir,” said the Light Fae guard. “This is the safest room for you. It faces west and won’t get any direct sunlight until late afternoon.”
“I know that,” Julian said shortly.
“Do you want me to escort you to another room anyway?” The guard’s handsome features were puzzled.
His expression grim, Julian gestured to his own guards to remain in the hall as he stepped inside and glanced around. Very little had changed about the room since he had last been in it.
Wrestling with unruly emotions, he told the other male, “Never mind. This will do.”
The guard asked, “Do you require refreshment, sir?”
Surprised, he raised one eyebrow. “Are you offering to donate?”
The guard’s face remained studiously polite. “If it is necessary. Sir.”
It was highly unusual for the Light Fae, or any of the other Elder Races, to offer to feed a Vampyre. The general assumption was that a Vampyre met his needs through his household. By having one of her guards offer him sustenance, Tatiana was making a huge concession in light of his abrupt trip.
The guard did not look enthusiastic at the prospect of letting Julian feed from him, but at least he didn’t appear revolted. Julian said dryly, “Thank you, no. Where is the Queen?”
“She wi
ll be with you as soon as she is able. I’ll let her know you’ve arrived. If you will just wait here, sir.”
“Of course.”
Once the Light Fae guard had left and shut the door behind him, Julian turned to confront the empty room.
There, in the corner by the French doors, was where it had all begun.
He fell into memories of the past.
It was the Festival of the Masque, and Tatiana had thrown another massive party. The number of guests was easily over a thousand, as people from all races and demesnes attended. Some wore simple masks and others donned elaborate finery. Fauns chased sylphs, while devils leered, and angels flirted.
Late into the evening, almost everybody was drunk except for Julian when he went looking for a quiet spot. Bored and contemplating leaving, he stepped into the family room.
That night, the French doors were propped open, letting in the cool breeze. A masked woman stood alone beside the drawn, cream-colored curtains, looking out at the revelry.
He knew who she was immediately, of course, but still he had to pause to admire the spectacle she made. Her white, floor-length halter dress accentuated every spectacular inch of her golden, curvy body. Her long, thick hair had been crimped into tight curls that swept off her forehead and cascaded about her shapely shoulders and down her hourglass back like a lion’s mane.
When she looked at him, her eyes gleamed behind a golden cat mask.
“Let me guess,” he said, as he strolled toward her. In an effort to hide how the sight of her affected him, he strove to sound lazy, disinterested. “You’re the goddess of love, Inanna.”
One corner of her full lips lifted. Gods, she had a sexy mouth, made perfectly for fitting around a man’s erection.
“Well, duh,” Melly said cheerfully. “I am a very drunken goddess of love. Hello, Julian. Such a shame you Vampyres can’t fully appreciate champagne. Mommy spent a fortune on the good stuff for tonight.”
“We can fully appreciate many wonderful things about champagne,” Julian told her as he stopped by her side. “The scent, the taste. How intoxicating the effects of champagne can be as it courses through the blood of a beautiful woman.” Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips. At the last moment, he turned it so that he could press his lips to the velvet skin at her inner wrist.