First Drop of Crimson

evidence in their blood, leaving only a strange cache of charred corpses with varying ages in the boat to be found, no supernatural traces left behind. As for Web’s monitors on the docks…they’d been found and destroyed.

Crispin already had to green-eye a few humans to forget the slaughter they’d stumbled onto. When the police didn’t show up, Spade suspected Web had warned them away from the docks earlier. Web wouldn’t have made Monaco his home without having an in with the local human authorities.

Spade felt a grim satisfaction as a search of the harbor and surrounding grounds of the hotels turned up no more vampires. As to the few that got away, he’d find them. They had no Master of their line to protect them now. It wouldn’t take him long to track them, especially not with the bounty he intended to put out on them—preferably delivered dead instead of undead.

“Spade!”

His head jerked around as he recognized Oliver’s voice, fear slithering up his spine. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to take Denise and Nathanial to Mencheres and stay with them until Spade rejoined them later.

Spade flew in the direction of Oliver’s voice, seeing the other man had just reached the docks. On foot.

“Where’s Denise?” he demanded, dropping out of the sky to grab Oliver. “Why isn’t she with you?”

“She knocked me out,” Oliver said thickly. “She’d been talking to Nathanial, and then she just clubbed me. I didn’t even see her raise the gun, she was so fast. When I came to, she’d already gone. I searched for her, but I didn’t find the SUV. I don’t know how long I was out…”

Spade threw back his head and roared with pain. There was only one reason Denise would have done such a thing.

She was going after the demon herself.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” Nathanial muttered.

Denise threw him a quelling glare. Her palm still burned from where she’d cut the transmitter out after dumping Oliver’s unconscious body on the shoulder of the road. That blow to the head wouldn’t take too long to heal, with the vampire blood he’d drunk earlier. She’d cut Nathanial’s transmitter out, too. She couldn’t go through all this just for Mencheres to track them and stop her.

“You remember what the alternative is, right? If you like your soul and want to keep it awhile longer, you’ll quit saying this isn’t going to work and start brainstorming ways it will.”

“Raum is an ancient, powerful demon. You’re just a human. How do you think you can outfight Raum enough to stab him in the eyes? Call your boyfriend. He has a better chance of defeating Raum.”

“If I do that, I may as well shoot you with this gun. It would be more merciful.”

“You could shoot me all you want, it won’t kill me,” Nathanial said bleakly. “If it were that easy for me to die, I wouldn’t be here. I tried every way to kill myself over the years. Hung myself. Shot myself. Stabbed myself. Jumped off a cliff. Blew myself up. Even had someone cut my head off—”

“No,” Denise gasped. “You did not survive all that.”

Nathanial gave her a weary, jaded look. “You don’t get what these brands are, do you? If they’d let me speak to you before, I could have told you. They’re extensions of Raum’s power. All his power, including his regenerative power. So just like nothing but that bone knife can kill a demon, nothing but that bone knife can kill someone branded by a demon. Took me a while to figure that out, but by then, Thomas convinced me not to use the knife on myself.”

“Who’s Thomas?”

“Was. Thomas was the priest I tricked who later helped me.”

Denise cast another glance at him while she drove. “You didn’t really survive your head getting cut off, did you?”

“You know how vampires regrow a limb right away after it’s cut off?” Nathanial made a slicing gesture across his throat. “New head, same look, within an hour. Made the person who decapitated me shit himself before he fainted.”

Denise remembered Raum taunting her the day he’d branded her that she was now beyond mortal death. She didn’t realize how far beyond he’d meant.

“But I bled when Web stabbed me. Spade had to heal me.”

“Of course you bled. But he didn’t have to heal you. You’d have healed soon enough on your own. Might have taken a day. You haven’t been branded that long, you said. The longer you have the demon essence in you, the faster you’ll heal.”

This was all so hard to take in—and frightening. If she was successful, she’d be branded for the rest of her life…and that life might last longer than she could even conceive of.

Or it might end before the sun rose.

“We need Spade if you’re going to try to kill Raum,” Nathanial said for the tenth time.

Denise snapped out a reply without looking away from the road. “Don’t you get it? Spade won’t risk my life for your soul. He’ll offer you up to Raum in a heartbeat. I can’t get him involved.”

Nathanial was silent for a long moment. “Why are you doing this for me? Taking on a demon when you could just hand me over and get back to your life?”

She let out a long breath. Because she couldn’t live with herself if she gave him over to the demon, knowing what would happen. Because she’d made up her mind that she was not the same person who’d stayed below in the basement that fateful New Year’s Eve. It was time for her to stand tough. To face the monsters, instead of letting others fight them for her.

“You said you wanted a second chance? Well, Nathanial, so do I.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Denise stood under the pier, the sand ending in waves a few feet behind her. The SUV had just sunk beneath the dark waters, filling quickly with all its windows rolled down and the doors open. Denise raised the gun, aiming it at Nathanial. She’d never shot anyone before in her life, but that was about to change.

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

Nathanial let out an impatient sigh. “You’re determined to fight Raum on your own, so you’ll need the element of surprise. If you summon him and I’m standing here calmly waiting for my doom, he’ll be suspicious. You’ll lose your element of surprise—and Denise, even with the element of surprise, and shifting into whatever you think is strong enough to beat a demon, your chances aren’t that great.”

“Aren’t you the pep talker?” She was already nervous about facing and fighting the demon. Hearing his perception of her odds wasn’t helping that.

Nathanial gave her a hard look. “You should call Spade.”

“You’ve got such a death wish,” she muttered. “For the last time, I’m not calling Spade. Period.”

Denise wasn’t telling Nathanial the other reason she was keeping Spade out of this, aside from the fact that he’d absolutely never let her do it. Raum had an ax to grind with Spade after those salt bombs. If Spade showed up anywhere near the demon, Denise had no doubt Raum would try to kill him. With her unheard-of capacity for injuries, she had more of a chance than Spade did.

And she’d be damned if she’d stand back once again and let the man she loved fight—and die—for her.

“So if Raum knows these bullets won’t kill you, what’s the point of me shooting you?”

“Because if I’m wounded enough, I can’t shift. You wouldn’t have been able to shift that day after your stab wound, except Spade healed you. That’s why Web kept me drained of blood all the time, aside from selling it, of course. He knew otherwise I’d shift into something that could take him out. If Raum sees me wounded, unable to shift, he’ll be a hell of a lot more inclined to think you’re not double-crossing him.”

Her palms were sweaty, making the gun feel slick in her grip. “Where, ah, do you want it?”

“If it’s in the shoulder, it won’t look convincing enough. In the heart might kill me if Raum removes the brands right away once he arrives…and we need him to remove the brands from me, by the way. That’s your best chance to attack, when he’s concentrating on pulling his power from me back into him. Aim for the middle. It’ll