“Tell me again why we’re coming back
“By all accounts, Moriarty and four of his crew have vanished. They never came back to their apartments, and nobody has seen them since they pulled out of here in his limo. The driver and car are missing too, and the last place anybody saw them was here. We could get old and gray sitting around waiting to get a copy of his cell phone records.”
“I’m already old and gray.” Tom shook his head and let out a weary sigh. “You said that the Hollingsworth broad lives here in the building?” He glanced at the spire of the old church. “That’s just weird. This place was creepy when it was full of people, and now it’s really fuckin’ creepy. The place is closed, man.”
“Yeah, but I think she and her staff know more than they’re letting on, and I want to know what it is.”
“Kid,” Tom said on a sigh. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”
Doug pulled his jacket out of the car and questioned his motives as much as Tom did. When he looked up, the gothic lettering of the nightclub’s sign glared at him accusingly. They shouldn’t be doing this.
He pulled his jacket on and stepped onto the cracked sidewalk in front of the club. Damien, the velvet rope, and the throngs of people were gone. Doug glanced at his watch and saw it was well past last call. He tugged on the doors of the club only to find them locked, and his heart sank. He didn’t realize until that moment how much he wanted to see her—to taste her.
“See, kid,” Tom said wearily as he leaned against the hood of their car. “They closed shop, and I don’t see any door to her apartment. Let’s go, huh? We can come at them again after we get some sleep.”
The high-pitched pinging sound of a bottle clinking down the pavement caught their attention, and Doug’s senses went into overdrive. They exchanged curious looks. Doug looked to his left toward the sound, but the sidewalks were empty, and the narrow street was void of moving cars. The only movement was farther down at the intersection of Sixth Avenue, but here on King Street it was quiet—too quiet.
The clinking sound echoed again, and this time they could tell it was coming from the narrow alley on the side of the club. Doug placed his finger on his lips and nodded toward the alley. He reached inside his jacket and wrapped his fingers around the steel butt of his gun as he and Tom inched closer.
Tom drew his gun and secured it in front of him as he sidled up quietly next to Doug. Maybe it was Damien or Olivia putting garbage out? It could be a cat or a drunk making his home next to a dumpster, but Doug couldn’t squelch the sense that it was something more. Maybe it was the case, or
As they moved slowly along the front wall of the club toward the alley, the lights of the nightclub sign flickered before going out and leaving them in the dark. No working streetlamps, and the sky was just beginning to lighten. Great.
“I don’t like this, kid.” Tom glanced around nervously.
Doug peered around the side of the building, but the alley was even darker than the damn street. He froze as the clinking sound of the bottle rattled again, and seconds later, an old Heineken bottle rolled past their feet.
A low, deep laugh floated toward them and chilled him to his core.
Doug and Tom raised their guns and swung around, but a split second later, something flew toward them. A dark shadow, seemingly death itself, grabbed Doug by the jacket, tossing him through the air, down the alley, and into the side of the dumpster. Lights bloomed behind his eyes, and his entire body went numb, as he slammed into the cold metal before landing in a groaning heap on the concrete.
Tom fired two shots, but someone or something tackled him to the ground, and through the head-spinning haze of pain, Doug could hear him screaming. He willed his body to move, to get up and help his partner, who was on the ground with someone on top of him. Doug rolled onto his side, gasping for air with his face pressed against the gravel, as he fought to stay conscious.
The numbness ebbed cruelly, as sharp pain radiated down his neck and back. He reached blindly around for his gun, but he could barely see anything. The world was spinning, and his head felt like it was going to crack open. He could hear his attacker move slowly toward him with the same low laugh he’d heard a moment ago. He inched closer as Doug vaguely recalled he had a gun in his ankle holster. Grunting from effort and biting back nausea, he snagged the gun from its hiding place.
“Police,” Doug shouted.
The man kept coming. Doug blinked as either blood or sweat dripped into his eye, and he squeezed off two rounds, one of which he was certain hit the guy in the chest. Through blurred vision he saw the guy jerk as the bullet impacted, but all it seemed to do was piss him off.
Behind him Doug saw Tom’s motionless body, and Doug knew he was dead. A dark shadow whisked in front of him, picked him up by the neck with one hand, and held him in the air like a rag doll. All he could see was a figure, a dark outline in the middle of a fuzzy sea of gray, while white spots danced before his eyes as the grip on his neck increased.
Gasping for air as the pressure in his head reached dangerous levels, he kicked at his attacker, but the guy was unfazed. In a flash he swung him around and pinned him against the building with the same ease that Doug would swing a baseball bat.
He let out an
All the guy did was flinch… and growl. He looked vaguely familiar, and somewhere in the recesses of his brain, he remembered this was a low-level criminal—one of Moriarty’s buddies. He was about five foot ten, far shorter than Doug, with dark hair and crazy eyes. That’s what he kept thinking. This guy must be crazy, hopped up on PCP, or coked out of his gourd. That was the only explanation that made sense—at least until he saw the fangs.
The word seemed silly, almost comical, and yet that was all Doug could think as the guy got right in his face and bared his teeth. He had fucking fangs, and a second later he drove them into Doug’s neck. It was like getting stabbed with a million tiny needles all over his body.
His skin burned, and his blood seemed to boil, but before long the pain was replaced by an odd sensation of floating and the vague awareness that he was being bitten over and over again. The guy was chewing on him like a damn steak. His back scraped against the bricks as he slid down the wall, while this crazy freak chewed on his neck. Just as his leaden eyelids fluttered closed, he heard
“Consider that your last meal, asshole.”
The creature released him, spun around, and hissed.
It was Olivia.
Olivia was here? Doug coughed, and the coppery taste of blood covered his mouth. He wanted to scream, to warn her to get the fuck out of there, but not a single part of his body would cooperate as he sat slumped against the wall. A split second later, a gunshot blasted through the alley and his attacker let out an ungodly shriek and exploded into flames.
As ashes fell over him like snow, the last sight he saw was his redheaded goddess, looming over him with a look of concern, a set of bright white fangs, and a big-ass gun. As Doug slipped into unconsciousness, he heard her whisper, “Forgive me.”
Doug’s body stung, throbbed, and twitched in the throes of death, and then… he was flying. Flying with Olivia, his limbs tangled temptingly with hers as they whisked through cool, peaceful tunnels of stone. Darkness swamped him as the light faded from his sight, and the world he knew slipped away. White-hot pain cloaked his body in the shadows, but the soothing sound of Olivia’s sweet voice eased his suffering and calmed the fire. He cradled her in his arms as the smell of copper and rich earth enveloped him and swept him away.
Chapter 8
