Vampire's Shade Discounted Box Set

Chapter 11-1

Chapter 11My eyes were foggy, and I kept blinkingto clear my vision. Slowly the room around me came into focus, and Ifound myself staring at my own ceiling. Soft morning light wasfiltering into the bedroom.

I sat up, grabbed my phone from whereit lay face down on the nightstand, and checked it. It was eightthirty on Friday morning. I hadn’t lost too much time.

Then a million questions crashed downon me. How had I gotten home? What had happened after the fight lastnight?

I groaned, the weight of humiliationdragging me down like a weight around my ankles. Could I even callwhat had happened a fight? Where had the rest of the night gone? Whathad I done in the black void that stretched from then until now?

I couldn’t remember anything. Thelast thing I remembered was those eyes, black pools of emptiness thatdrew me in. The warmth came back, the numb feeling that I had beencraving for years. The feeling I had never been able to find with anyof my kills.

I shook my head. I had to snap out ofit. That woman was going to steal everything from me. Everything thatmade me, me. I knew it like a solid truth inside me, cementing myresolve in place.

When I threw back the covers and swungmy legs out, I noticed I was still wearing my leathers. The graze onmy leg smarted, and I touched my thigh gingerly. Hadn’t I gottenundressed? I felt like I’d been stuck in a dream. I got up,unbuckled my thigh sheath and climbed out of the torn pants. Theleather clung to my wounds, and peeling it off was like removing aBand-Aid. Once they were off, I threw them toward the wastebasket.Then I stripped off the rest of my clothes as well.

I slathered antiseptic cream on thewound, which burned an angry red all the way down. It hurt like hell,and I could feel my pulse throbbing down the length of my leg. Thelast thing I wanted was an infection the size of half my body. Atleast being half-vampire meant I would heal up in half the time.

When I’d finished, I took aninventory of my stuff. All my guns were in the gun safe, which wasnormal. But my thigh sheath had still been on my leg. Strange. Iwalked over to the bed and discovered that my Glock was missing. WhenI searched through the room, I found it on the dressing table.Definitely not where it should have been.

In the bathroom, I checked myself outin the mirror. I ran my hands down my face, then opened the tap. Icupped my hands under the stream, intending to splash some cold wateronto my face. Then I looked at myself in the mirror again.

My old bruises were completely gone.The woman had scratched me hard on the cheek. I remembered how it hadstung, the slick blood running down my face, but when I inspected myskin, there wasn’t a mark. I tried to count how many hours it hadbeen. Seven? Eight? I could easily heal up in that time, but thisfelt quicker than normal. Either I was showing more of my vampireside, which scared me, or something else was wrong – I’d missedmore time or something. That scared me too, so I decided to believethe former.

Still, it all felt wrong. Very wrong.

I fetched my knife in its sheath fromthe bedroom and hung it in the shower. I wasn’t going to doanything without protection anymore, until I could figure out whatthe hell was going on. The hot water stung down my leg and I grittedmy teeth, trying to keep soap out of the wound.

By the time I was finished showering,two things were playing in my mind. One: she was just toying with menow, like a cat playing with a mouse. But the real trouble wouldcome. She wouldn’t let me live. If I was getting beaten up already,how would I protect myself when things got serious?

And two: if I had gotten home bymyself, that would have been fine, but there were too many thingsthat pointed to someone else trying to fake my routine. That meantthat someone knew me well enough to know what I did and where Ilived. And if that was the case, I was in very, very deep trouble.

The phone rang, and I nearly jumped outof my skin. When I picked it up, I didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?” My voice was thin, unsure.I hated the way I sounded.

“It’s Jennifer,” that familiar,feminine voice said.

I could feel every fiber in my bodyslowly begin to relax. I rubbed my temple with my free hand.

“I was just wondering if you’vemanaged to find anything yet,” Jennifer said.

Yes, I found your boyfriend. He was avampire, and I really wanted to see him again.

“Actually, I was hoping we could meetin person again. There are a couple of things I’d like to talkabout.”

“We can talk now,” she suggested.

“I don’t think this is the kind ofthing we want to talk about on the phone.”

She gasped at the other end of theline, then dropped her voice. “Do you think it’s being tapped?”

This wasn’t a spy novel. Blood,betrayal, death – that was a part of my daily life. But my phonebeing tapped didn’t seem likely. I thought back to Joel, and hispit being trashed. The level of security on Connor’s onlineinformation. I shook it off.

“Nothing like that. I just want tomeet up. When’s good for you?”

“Saturday afternoon,” she saidafter a moment. “We can meet at my house.”

I hesitated for a second, then agreed.If it wasn’t her home, it would be mine. I hated being out inpublic, and I wasn’t willing to let her into my home again unless Ididn’t have a choice.

“I’ll be there at three,” I said.“Send me your address.”

“Will you let me know if you findanything in the meantime?”

“I will,” I lied.

“The truth is, I’m starting to losehope,” she said.

A pang of guilt shot through my chest.I was working myself into a corner, and fast. At the beginning of theweek, my life had been regular, ordinary. Shoot to kill, survive tosee another night, take care of Aspen. Simple. Now I didn’t knowwhich side was up anymore. My life had become a Rubik’s Cube Icouldn’t solve.

After Jennifer had hung up, I dialedthe office. Boy, was Ruben going to be pissed. Not only had I managedto ignore his orders to find Connor, but I had also lost an entirenight.

“What?” he barked into the phonewhen he picked up.

“I wanted to explain last night,” Ireplied.

This wasn’t going to be easy. Iexpected him to swear up one side of me and down the other.

“What about last night?” he asked.“You have more information you want to share with me?”

“More?”

“Than last night.”

I hesitated. “Did I phone in lastnight?”

Ruben snorted. “You told me you’dfound a lead and you were tracing him. Not your best effort, but it’sbetter than nothing. What’s going on?”

Someone was playing with me. Nothingmade sense, and most of all, Ruben wasn’t angry with me. Somethingwas definitely off.

“I just called to check what time youneeded me in tonight,” I said, recovering. I didn’t want him tofind out something was wrong. I needed this job more than I neededthe money.

“Don’t come in tonight. Somethingurgent came up, and I’m not going to be in the office. I gave Carla night off too.”

I’d completely forgotten about myso-called colleague. It usually felt like I was working the fieldalone. I hardly ran into the guy. Why hadn’t Ruben assigned him toConnor’s case, if he thought I was making such a mess of it? Also,having a night off was a rarity.

“I’ll be in touch,” Ruben saidbefore I could ask, and hung up the phone.

A night off. I couldn’t remember thelast time that had happened. It sounded good, until I startedwondering what I would do with my time. What I would do for a releaseinstead.

I put more antiseptic cream on mywound, then bandaged my leg up. It restricted my movements, which Ihated, but with some luck the wound would be healed soon. I dressedin jeans and a blouse, and left my hair loose for a change.

I had a couple of errands to run. I’drun out of leather clothes, and I wasn’t going to do the dirty injeans. It just wasn’t that easy to get blood out of regular fabric.I also needed a quote on my paint job, I had to train with Sensei,and I needed to get to a place where I could do some research aboutthe cat lady whose name I still didn’t know.

I was getting tired of thinking of heras my attacker. I would have much preferred to think of her as myvictim, but for that I’d need a leg up on what she was capable of.

The rest of Friday was ridiculous. Iwent home with my bike booked in for a paint job and new leathers inplastic bags – but I’d found absolutely nothing anywhere on womenwho had abilities like Ms. White Hair. I was miserable and tired, soinstead of heading out, I took two sleeping pills and crawled underthe covers.

Saturday morning, my cell phone pulledme out of a coma-like sleep with a shrill ring that made me want tothrow it through the window. Instead, I answered. No one had eversaid I had a lack of self-control.

“What is it?”

“This is Sonya,” her dull voicecame over the phone.

I realized she’d never phoned mebefore. I was usually in the office at sundown. If anything, shesounded even more boring over the phone than in person. I wondered ifshe had a life outside the office.

“You work on weekends? You’rephoning me during the day.” I imagined her in a room with metalshutters and black curtains.

She ignored my question. “Ruben has ameeting set up that you need to attend.”

“You may work weekends, but I don’t.”

“You had the night off,” shepointed out. Of course. Why would I think I’d get paid leave? “Hewants you to meet with Ms. Clemens today at noon.”

“Ms. Clemens the reporter?” Thename at the bottom of the article Joel had shown me.

“That’s the one.”

“It’s daytime,” I said. Ruben andI had agreed on no work during, even though we both knew that I couldoperate during the day. I just didn’t want to.

“You’ll make a plan. Meet Ruben atFiasco just before noon.” That said, she hung up.

I sighed and let the phone slide downonto the pillow. Great. If I’d known I was going to trade myweekend for a Friday night off, I would have refused and gone outanyway.

I didn’t know how I was going to gethold of Connor to cancel with him. He’d just have to suck it. Workcame before vampires. Even though work was vampires.

I rolled out of bed and crawled intothe shower, swearing when the hot water stung enough to remind meabout my leg. The edges of the wound were healed with new pink skin,but the graze was still quite big, and it hurt. Once the stinging hadebbed, the hot water woke my body up slowly, and by the time I wasfinished I felt human again.

I texted Aspen. I didn’t likeskipping days, but I would see her tomorrow.

Then I stood in front of my closet witha towel wrapped around my body, looking for something appropriate towear. I wasn’t going to meet the snooping reporter in my killingclothes. Nothing screamed trouble more than a woman like me wearingguns and leathers. I settled on jeans that could stretch to allow forthe bandage I had wrapped around my leg, a wine-red blouse that mademy hair color intense, and black sandals. The shoes were still in theoriginal shoebox Aspen had given them to me in, three birthdays ago.

I applied makeup and brushed my hair. Ieven went to the effort of putting on earrings. When I studied thefinal result in the mirror, I didn’t look like myself at all. Ilooked like a businesswoman. A civilian. Someone who could have acompletely different life. Unfortunately, changing what I looked likedidn’t change who I was.

Fiasco was a coffee shop in theshopping center across from the mall. It was the place everyone wentto for early morning business meetings, because it opened at six, andit offered the paper with a coffee and a bagel as its morningspecial.

When I arrived, Ruben was alreadysitting at a table. He was wearing suit pants and a collared shirtwith a tie. The shirt was ironed and clean, and he’d run a combthrough his hair. I glanced down to see shiny black shoes instead ofslippers.

“You clean up nicely. You look humanfor a change,” Ruben said when I sat down.

“I can say the same for you,” Iresponded coolly.

He snorted. “I was scared you mightarrive in your leathers.”

“What kind of an accountant would Ibe if I wore leathers?”

“That’s my girl,” Ruben said,smiling.

I wanted to tell him how much I wasn’this girl, but before I could, another woman arrived at our table. Sheintroduced herself as Celia Clemens, journalist for the WesthamGazette. I didn’t know why she bothered with all of that. Therewas only one newspaper in town. No competitors? Tough life.