The police cars were gone by the time Michael returned home, but just in case any individual cops were still in the halls, he took an alternative route up to his apartment. Broad daylight, but Michael did not worry about being seen. No one in this neighborhood cared whether a vampire lived amongst them. They had worse problems to deal with.
Up and away, he thought, floating through the air to his fire escape. He touched down, light as a breeze amidst his roses, savoring their sweet scent in his nose, the softness of petals rubbing his skin.
Keeli’s skin felt softer. Her scent was even sweeter.
He thought of her as he slid through his open window, and the memory of her lips and smiling face, that tousled pink hair, was both wonderful and dissatisfying. Dissatisfying, because his apartment no longer felt like home. Not even a shadow of home. He stood in the middle of the tiny studio, and all he felt from the cracked walls was a lonely emptiness, as if everything that had allowed him to pretend this place was his—his, and enough—had been carried away by Keeli’s existence.
It isn’t such a bad thing to want more from life, he told himself. But how he was going to manage it, was another problem entirely. Michael sighed. Ten years in this city, the longest he had ever spent in one place. Almost one hundred years previously, he had been sent to America in the wake of a vampire migration. Sent to clean up the messes of those few who thought to make this country a feeding ground.
The prospect of another long boat ride spent cramped and starving in constant darkness had prevented Michael from returning to Europe. He did not mind. America suited the sensibilities of his youth: movement, change, unstructured borders and wild freedom.
Now, though, another upheaval.
Not that he was complaining.
He wondered how Keeli was doing—questioned his decision to leave her behind, to face all her people alone. He had promised he would not do that.
But Keeli isn’t the kind of woman you protect against her will. She’s strong. She’s been taking care of herself long before she ever knew you existed.
It still felt like a risk, though. Michael knew how violently friends and loved ones could turn against their own. Sudden, shocking, without warning. Michael did not know much about Keeli’s life, or werewolf clans, but he was certain she had been raised in a community of common bonds, straightforward action and thought. There would be very little room for deviance. For deviant behavior.
Michael sighed. In three hundred years, he couldn’t remember worrying this much—if at all—about anyone but himself. The circumstances did not make it any easier, either. It was clear to him now that if he and Keeli continued doing … whatever … her people were not going to be sympathetic or disinterested. There would be a price to pay, and Michael did not want to contemplate what that might be.
So are you going to give up? Are you going to pretend there’s nothing between the two of you, and just leave her when this is over?
It would be better for Keeli if he did. Better for him, too. If he could bring himself to do it.
He took off the blue shirt and carefully folded it. He did not know what had happened to Keeli’s father, only that seeing the shirt had caused Keeli and her grandmother pain. He thought of Keeli, crumpled in the tunnels, sobbing and sick, and knew that whatever had happened down there to cause all those empty homes had been terrible indeed.
Keeli Maddox—the mysterious granddaughter of Crimson City’s Grand Dame Alpha, and the sole survivor of a vicious attack that destroyed most of that infamous bloodline …
The words of the newspaper article filled his mind. So. Keeli’s family had been murdered. But who would do that? Was it the humans? Certainly not the vampires. Could it be other werewolves?
She and her grandmother are the last of Maddoxes, Michael realized. If Keeli doesn’t take up the mantle of leadership—which seems likely—then Maddox will be no more. The clan will take a different name.
Michael wondered if it would be clan Mack. Grand Sire Alpha, Jas Mack.
He did not like the sound of that.
He went to the refrigerator, pulled out two bags of blood, and put them in the microwave. Set the timer and stood back to wait for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He was getting low on food, would have to place an order soon with the local supply chain.
The prospect of spending money reminded him of the payment Celestine had brought with her that morning. He found the briefcase right where she dropped it and carried it to the kitchen counter. He cracked it open.
Five thousand dollars in fresh crisp twenties smiled at him. Michael did not smile back. This was small change, pennies almost, to the men and women who paid him. He did not mind being poor—it was what he was used to—but every time he received payment for his work it reminded him that, in this, he was not free. That he would never be free.
Just like almost every other man and woman on this planet. You have to work for a living.
Yes. But most people probably didn’t feel like killers-for-hire every time they got paid. They probably weren’t killers for hire.
The microwave pinged. Michael closed the briefcase and set it on the ground. Wouldn’t do to get anything dirty. He ate quickly, sinking his teeth into the blood packet. Warmth flooded his throat, and with it, strength.
This is what it’s like for humans, for others of my kind. What it used to be like for me. Food is simply food. The same litany, chanted again and again in his mind, trying so desperately to stave off the—
Michael shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut as memory wracked him. He tore the blood packet from his mouth, spraying the floor with crimson droplets.
Remember, whispered a voice in his mind, familiar as his own, but dead. Dead.
Michael remembered. He remembered the cold chains strapping him down inside his hole in the ground, the slow torture of blood—one drop per hour—into his parched mouth. His skin, cracked and peeling with starvation, and Malachai—golden, cruel—standing above him with his long white teeth and blazing eyes, taunting him, torturing Michael into something worse than animal.
And then setting him loose. Setting him free. Starving. Frenzied. Insane.
Michael sank to the floor, sick with the taste of blood.
You have to eat, he told himself. You have to stay strong.
He forced himself to pick up the seeping blood packet. Michael took a deep breath, and licked the plastic clean. It helped that the blood was not straight from a human. It helped a little. He fit his teeth into the holes he had already made, and drank the packet down to the last drop. He did the same with the next packet, and after a time, his nausea subsided. He could not enjoy his meal, but at least he was able to keep it down. That was all that mattered to him. Survival. Taking in enough food to retain control.
Michael felt better, too. He glanced at his rib wound, noting the skin healing over. Keeli’s bite marks were almost gone, as well. He stroked them. Werewolf bites took extra care. Nothing out of the ordinary, beyond blood and rest, but without those two things, Michael would be very uncomfortable for the next several days. He had enough on his plate without walking around in pain, half-healed. Especially for what he planned to do tonight. The other vampires at The Bloody Pulp would smell his injuries if they were too severe. And there was going to be enough trouble without anyone thinking he was in a weakened state.
Michael’s shoulders tingled, a shiver of unease. He turned around. His window was still open, roses swaying gently in a breeze. He was completely alone. He slipped over to his weapons and grabbed a dagger. Held the blade flat against his thigh as he glided toward the window. When he was close, he stopped and listened. Took another step, stopped. His roses beckoned, bright as sunshine, canaries, sunsets.
He looked closer, and went completely still. A small budded stem near his window hung limp and broken from the main branch.
Michael knew his roses. He loved his roses. That little stem had not been broken when he returned to his apartment.
Which meant that someone had just been on his fire escape, watching him. Someone large and very quiet.
Michael crept close to his window, took a deep breath, and stuck out his head to look around. He did not see anyone. The sky was empty, as were the alley and fire escape. He pulled back into shadow, his skin tingling from the light. He needed to put on more sunblock.
Michael shut the window and locked it. He looked at his roses for one minute, thoughtfully tapping the dagger blade against his leg.
Who would be spying on me?
The idea of a vampire peering in through his windows was laughable. Michael couldn’t imagine anyone being that stupid.
Unsettled, he returned to the table to examine his weapons: a collection of daggers, swords, and stakes. He did not use anything high tech when he killed. It seemed wrong, somehow, like he wasn’t giving the other side a fighting chance. Not that he was supposed to. He was the executioner; his victims were always criminals. The most heinous kind. They were murderers, rapists—or at the worst, necrophiliacs who desecrated the bodies they drained. Even Michael thought himself an idiot, giving those rogues a chance to fight back—but he knew what it was like to be helpless, to be faced with the inescapable, and he did not wish that on his worst enemy.
Nor did he ever want himself to get used to an easy kill. Death without consequences. He remembered that, too.
Michael sorted out what he wanted to take with him: a sword, several throwing knives—two of which were tipped in oak—and several stakes concealed in arm sheathes. Collecting everything helped him focus, got his thoughts away from pink hair and soft lips. He dressed himself with a Kevlar plate over his heart and left shoulder blade, as well as a wide iron collar under his black turtleneck.
His phone rang just as he was ready to leave. He stretched out on the mattress as he answered the call. There was no greeting from the other end.
“Michael,” said a deep voice. “We will need your services again tonight.”
Michael closed his eyes. “I won’t be available to guard the envoy, Frederick. Your own men should be enough. I don’t believe the werewolves plan to ambush you.”
“Are you sure of that? There’s been a murder.” Frederick sounded so displeased, Michael instinctively looked at his weapons.
“I heard,” Michael said cautiously.
“I thought you had, working as you do with the humans.” The last word was spit out. “You know, then, that the crime was committed by a werewolf.”
“Maybe not just a werewolf,” Michael said, deciding that this was information he could share. “A vampire could have been present, too. This is a complex situation, Frederick.”
“Make it less complex,” Frederick said. “You know what’s at stake.”
“We are,” Michael said, unable to keep a trace of cold humor from his voice. “I’m doing my best to find out what happened. Do you know anything?”
“No,” Frederick snapped. “My hands are full enough trying to keep this from destroying the negotiations. I’m only thankful the victim was Walter Crestin, and not someone of higher … stature.”
Like one of you, Michael thought.
“I spoke with Celestine,” Frederick continued, his voice changing into something even more ominous. “She told me of the werewolf at your apartment. I hope this doesn’t represent a conflict of interest?”
Michael gritted his teeth. “None at all. That werewolf is my liaison to the underground. She’s helping me investigate the murder.”
“Ah. Fine, then. I just wanted to be clear on that point. You serve a vital function in our community, Michael. It wouldn’t do to have that function sullied with … rumors.”
“Rumors.” Michael felt his heart grow hard, dangerous. “I’m already an outcast, Frederick. Everyone fears me. What could a little rumor do that would possibly be worse than that?”
Frederick laughed, and hung up the phone. Michael looked out the window and stared at the broken rose.