Mixed Blessing (Mixed Blessing Mystery, Book 1) (34 page)

"The very same," Samson replied coolly, staring at my fangs, but I ignored him and spun back to Mark.

"One of the..." I began, but he finished.

"Safe houses." He looked at me, eyes widened. "You know?" He was beeping the locks on his car as he spoke.

"We have vampires at all of them," I answered, squaring my shoulders and straightening my back as Mark rounded on me with a mix of incredulity and fury on his face. "I told you we could help protect them."

"By leading one of your own, who happens to be the murderer, right there?" he demanded, slipping into his car.

I pulled the passenger door of his vehicle open, just as he started the engine and also started to complain about me riding shotgun as I slipped inside.

"Oh no! You're not coming with me," he shot towards my side of the car and then shut up abruptly as the door to the back of the vehicle opened and then closed, with - to him - no one stepping inside. "Fuck me," he muttered, but wisely didn't continue the argument, instead started the car forward out of the prison grounds.

I turned to Samson. "Why didn't you just alter his reality again, then he wouldn't have seen the door open."

"I am getting tired," he replied, through slightly gritted teeth. "This is a long time to uphold a reality change."

Mark ignored our conversation as he spoke into the police radio.

"What are you going to do once we get there?" I asked, there'd be a lot of people at the scene to alter realities for.

"I'll appear as one of the vampires who was already on scene to him. Those there will see me arrive."

Well that seemed simple enough. I flicked a glance over Samson's face, trying to see the tiredness he was complaining of. His eyes were purely bistre now, no chocolate to be seen at all, but there was little else to indicate he was under strain. He still appeared picture perfect to me. He smiled widely back when my gaze made it to his face again, after checking the rest of him out. I rolled my eyes and swung face forward in the car.

A second later his hand came to the back of my neck and started rubbing softly against my skin. A breath left me in a rush, but for some strange reason I didn't stop him, or pull away. He was tired and needed the connection, I told myself. My Dark Shadow just laughed quietly inside my head.

It was pandemonium when we arrived. Police cars tearing up to the scene as we did. The officers already there looking a little worse for wear, but thankfully still alive. And most alarmingly, several of Michel's vampires looking equally as worse for wear. No dust though, so none had met the final death.

I stepped out of the vehicle as Samson and Mark both did and the smell of blood met me like a sledge hammer to the brain. I wondered briefly, why my Nosferatin side didn't pick up on the vampire about to kill. This was an innocent, my hunter instincts should have kicked in. But then, he wasn't draining them, feeding off them. He was slicing their throats with a knife and didn't drink a drop of their blood it would seem.

Oh fuck-a-duck. A loophole if ever there was one.

"How many inside?" I asked into the night, as both Mark and I had hesitated at the horrific scene that met us. Men down everywhere and way more men than Mark had expected, I was sure.

"She lives with three flatmates," Samson replied and Mark woke up form his shock and swung around to glare at him.

"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.

"I am part of the security detail arranged by Georgia. Backup, our guys called it in when the vampire attacked."

Mark stared at him for a moment, then added, "Just you?"

Samson slowly smiled. "I am more lethal than I appear."

Mark stared at him, then muttered, "Whatever."

I resisted rolling my eyes at them both. Men.

"We need to get in there." I took a step toward the house. It was an old villa, similar to Kara's, but we were in Grey Lynn, not Ponsonby.

Mark stepped in front of me and shook his head. "No way, we do this by the book. Wait for the Armed Offenders Squad, secure the scene, make sure it is safe to get inside."

I glared at him. "Mark," I said softly. "We're vampires, we don't need the scene secured."

He looked at me for a long moment, his face a blank mask. Pretty impressive really, he'd make a good vampire with that poker face, considering I could scent not only stringent ammonia and apple mixed with lime, but also soggy wet wool. He was angry at my reminder of what I was, confused at what it actually meant, but also uncomfortable with the whole thing. I kind of felt sorry for him, but I couldn't spare any more than a passing thought. Time was marching.

"I smell more than one victim," I said sniffing the air.

"No heartbeats," Samson offered at my side.

"I smell him," I whispered softly and both Samson and Mark turned their heads to stare at me.

"What's his scent?" Samson asked quietly, but I could feel the tension rolling off him.

"Slightly burnt peaches, apple and cinnamon." He inhaled deeply.

"I've got him, he's still here."

"He's excited," I added, before I realised how much I was giving away.

Samson didn't show any reaction to this, just asked, "Anything else that could help?"

I closed my eyes to block out the sudden fear of revealing more than I had intended and then told myself, this needed to be done. No stopping now.

"And angry," I added, cocked my head to the side and inhaled again. "And proud."

"Proud?" Samson asked, his voice still so very quiet, as though speaking louder would either interfer with my talent or scare me off from using it altogether. Perhaps he knew me better than I thought.

"It's what I smell."

Silence.

Then, "You go left, I go right. Michel and Lucinda are on the way with backup, but we can't let him escape." This all from Samson, who had quickly and accurately assessed the scene and come up with our plan of attack. I didn't argue. Like him, I believed we couldn't let this vampire get away.

We broke from our huddle without another word. Mark not even offering a complaint or last minute directive. This needed to be done. This vampire had attacked a protected residence, he'd do it again tomorrow night regardless of where the police decided to house the rest of the market research group. This vampire wanted them all dead. Why?

The area around the side of the house seemed unnaturally quiet. There were no lights shining through the windows. No sound from within. The street we had come from forgotten as soon as I stepped under the eaves of the house. The path I was on was overgrown and moss covered, but my feet found purchase silently and surely; a cat stalking its prey.

I hadn't argued with Samson's suggestion, because I knew the vampire was on this side of the house. Samson may have been able to pick up the scent once I described it, to even tell it was too strong on the air to mean anything other than the fact the vampire was still here. But he couldn't track like I could. I am a
Hundr
, according to Aliath. Apparently, he had been correct.

I knew he was waiting for me. Just as I knew that this was the murdering vampire, the same signature scent at all of the murder scenes. But I also knew who this vampire was. I'm not sure why he appeared so very different to Stu at SubZero; clean shaven, smart clothing, shiny, loose hair. But I knew this vampire. I knew him as well as I knew myself.

Because his blood thrummed in my veins.

I'm not a regular vampire, the turning he attempted had failed, but he had attempted it. Some of his blood had made it inside, despite the failure, it was still there. And always would be. I would recognise him and he would recognise me. The only reason why I didn't when facing him on that hunt, where he marked my chest, was he was too quick and I wasn't paying attention.

He'd attacked my mind before I'd registered the draw. The pull. To his blood.

But I was prepared tonight. And I had reinforced my shields with Light.

But I don't think he was in the mood to attack my mind this evening, so maybe my Light would not have been enough protection at all. Because he was standing patiently in a pool of moonlight, in the centre of the backyard. Smart, casual, clean dress; tan chino trousers, white button down shirt. Brown boots poking out from the bottom of his crisply laundered trousers. Lustrous brown hair down past his shoulders. Deep brown eyes on me. Not a drop of blood in sight. Nor filth nor dirt nor dishevelment.

His arms were clasped together before him, his legs slightly apart. He seemed at ease. And he was smiling. Looking at me as though he was so very, very proud.

"Daughter," he said in that same deep purr he had used when he marked me. "You came."

Several things happened at once. I growled and bared my fangs, Samson rounded his side of the house and added his own deeper, louder growl into the mix, and the Rogue, my Sire, leapt towards me. I braced for defence and saw Samson spring from his position at the side of the house. Fangs down, grey/black soot in his eyes. His face a feral mixture of anger and fear.

He was fast. Faster than I had ever seen him act before. Samson is more than he appears. But he wasn't fast enough.

My Sire reached me, I defended with a blast of Light, but his grasp of my arm was too tight, too sure. And he wasn't going to let go, despite the pain I was causing.

And then things went way the hell south.

In a split fraction of a second we were no longer in the backyard of some poor victim's house. We were several meters down the road, the flashing lights of the police cars at the scene, sending a blue-red hue over the night sky. People moving in on the building. Backup had arrived.

Too late.

I turned my attention away from the scene unfolding back up the street and stared into the brown eyes of my captor. Who also happened to be my Sire. He was watching me, not the scene where Mark was barking orders and shouts could be heard from where we stood. I wondered why he wasn't trying to move us further away and then I noticed we were standing in the shadow of a tall Kauri Tree. The moon's light shone down from above, but didn't reach us.

He was Shadow Walking, like I can Shadow Walk and he was able to pull me into that shadow with him. I felt momentarily ill at the thought that one of my more useful and cool talents was inherited from him. But he could do more than simply walk in the shadows, he could disappear.

He'd disappeared at each scene he had killed at, one second there, the next gone. His scent vanishing when I had followed it. But I had never considered Shadow Walking as a disappearing act before. I realised my mistake now.

"You have much to learn," he said in that deep purr, his eyes still on my face. I liked his voice I decided, and then blinked at my response and thoughts. "I am not sure you are using all of your talents to their best advantage, but we can do something about that," he went on. "At least you have something to offer."

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but I shook my head to clear the fog of finding myself in this position and began to fight his grasp on my arm. He let me struggle for a few seconds, he even gave me false hope that I would succeed. His grip loosened, he moved back when I pushed, he fumbled slightly as I twisted my arm and aimed a fist at the side of his face. But it was an act. A cat toying with a mouse.

After only a few moments of semi-succeeding to escape his clutches, he growled, his eyes flashed crimson and then his grip turned to steel. Both arms grabbing my shoulders on either side, pulling me against his chest, then shaking me violently, as though I was nothing more than a child's rag doll. My neck stretched, my head started to pound and black spots appeared before my eyes. It took everything I had not to make a sound and show weakness, and then I grasped my Light and thrust it at his heart.

He laughed when it hit him. Actually laughed. I can't say I liked his laugh as much as I liked his deep purr when he talked.

And then his forehead came forward and slammed into my face. I felt the pain of my nose breaking, the heat of the blood which began to pour down my chin, smelled the metallic scent on the air - and then the world turned to black.

I woke up tied to a bed.

Not a nice bed either, but one I could have easily pictured my Sire's alter ego: the Rogue, sleeping on. I tried not to think about what was crawling beneath me, but I could hear them, whatever the fuck they were. Tiny scratching little feet in amongst the lumps of mattress filling under me. And it stank. I stopped breathing when I picked up ammonia. And it wasn't the ammonia I scent when someone is mad, this was the real deal.

Someone had peed in this bed.

I gagged and took a look around me. It was harder than it sounded, my wrists were bound securely to the chipped white metal bar that acted as a headboard above my head. One to one side of the structure, the other stretched to the other side. Likewise were my feet at the other end of the bed. I rattled the ties, making the bed jump along the concrete floor it was on, scraping and grinding as it hopped over the surface with my efforts to break free.

It was pretty much useless, as I had expected, but I had to try. I strained my head to look around. The bed was against a blue paint chipped concrete wall, there was one window over my left shoulder which had been completely covered in brown cardboard, taped to the rotting wooden frame surrounding the glass. I could tell by the shade of the cardboard that the sun was out on the other side.

The night had almost been over when we approached that house in Grey Lynn, so it wasn't a surprise to see it was daylight out, but without seeing my watch - which was facing the wrong way and I couldn't get the angle right to make it twist towards me against the disgustingly dirty fabric of the mattress beneath my arm - I couldn't tell how much of the day had passed.

I quickly determined there was fuck all else in the room. The bed. The cardboard covered window. One metal chair, leaning precariously at an angle as one of the legs seemed slightly bent out of shape, and a door. The door was closed and didn't offer up any further intel.

Fuck.

Fuckfuck
fuck
-a-duck.

I rattled the bed again just because I could.

He'd even taken my jacket, which housed my stakes. I was lying in my jeans and t-shirt. My boots still on, but little else to help. I was screwed. I couldn't use my Light to escape, it doesn't work that way, and how it
is
meant to work, seems like water off a duck's back to my Sire. Sure, it hurt, I saw the pain in his eyes when I blasted him, but he was still able to hold on to me, shake me, and whack his friggin' forehead into my nose.

Smelling scents wasn't going to miraculously release the binds at my wrists and ankles and Shadow Walking would do jack shit right now. And there was no way I could get fang to the ridiculously strong ropes and bite through them. Every weapon I had in my arsenal was useless.

I was screwed.

I'm not a patient person. Never have been. And as he hadn't gagged me, somehow an oversight on his part, I began to scream my head off.

"Hey! Hey! I'm in here! Where the hell am I? Anyone hear me? Hey! Help!" Probably not the wisest thing to request, any Norm walking in on this would no doubt end up his dinner, but I couldn't seem to help myself calling for aid. A natural survival instinct. "Hey!" I followed all of that up with some more rattling of the metal bed frame, making it bounce its way across the floor.

I did all of this for at least ten minutes. Ten long tortuous minutes. No one replied. No one came banging into the room and declared they were there to rescue me. And then get eaten. Not a bloody thing. So I eventually stopped. Not that I was giving up, but if someone was nearby they would have responded, so I decided conserving energy was a better plan for now.

My Dark Shadow had been prowling inside throughout all of this. Not in the least bit happy to be confined. When I was first turned, then died, then reborn as a Nothus, it took quite some adjusting to get used to this
thing
that lived inside. She is part of me now, but also separate. I'm not entirely sure how it is for
normal
vampires and their vampires-within, but for me I get the impression she tolerates my existence about as much as I tolerate hers. She lets me take the lead, most of the time, but if she thinks I'm fucking up, she has no hesitation about stepping in. And taking over.

I could tell now she was close to doing just that. Normally I wrestle control back, but that's because I get myself out of whatever situation I am stuck in and she backs down. This, right now, was not going to be the case. I had tried to break the binds tying me to the bed, I had tried to call for help. Nothing was left for
me
to do, but wait.

So she grew angrier. My Dark Shadow was poising for a take-over and I had no idea how that would play out.

Trying to reason with her was a waste of time. It's not as though we have in-depth conversations. A few words here and there, but mainly I sense her moods, react to her emotions, and likewise she does mine. I'm not a normal vampire, there is half of me that is Nosferatin and half of me that is Nosferatu. Not to mention that part of me that remembers being human. It's fucked up. And, I was beginning to think, potentially volatile. Maybe there was a legitimate reason why the
Iunctio
killed us on sight.

I was waiting for her to strike when the door creaked open and my Sire waltzed in, as though he was paying a visit and about to catch up on old times. He walked over to the crooked chair as the door swung shut behind him and pulled it closer to my bed, swinging it around and sitting over it. The back of the chair to me, his arms draped over the top, legs wide as he straddled it.

"They call you Gigi," he announced, brown eyes surveying my outstretched body with an unnatural detachment. "I don't like that name for you, we'll think of a new one. One befitting your role."

"And what role would that be?" It wasn't like I wanted to talk to this guy, but knowledge was power and right now I was pretty much powerless, so I'd take whatever I could get.

"My protégée. My blood runs in your veins, you must live up to that, act appropriately. It is an honour and a privilege, and one that does not suit the name
Gigi
."

OK. This was disconcerting. And way the hell wrong. He had attacked me, marked me, warned me away from hunting him. Yet all of a sudden he wanted to claim me as part of his line. Be my master. When he had fled the scene of my turning and abandoned me to my fate.

In your dreams,
bud!

"You're not my master." There were other sentences in my head, but that's the one that broke free first.

His eyes flashed crimson - I was thinking the same crimson I flashed when my Dark Shadow rose to the fore - and his fangs slammed down and out. He hissed at me, but didn't come closer.

"You are mine, I feel my blood in your veins. I
am
your master." Unlike when my fangs are down and out, this guy didn't lisp at all.

"The turning didn't work," I persisted.

"It worked just fine."

"I am not a normal vampire," I pushed.

"I know, and that is why I bothered to return for you. You could be of some use."

"Then why did you warn me off?" And OK, did I really care? Obviously I did, because my mouth was just running away with my thoughts, without any direction from me.

"To test you. You passed, by the way."

Great. I glared at him, he stared impassively back.

"Your training will begin once we leave here. I have a few loose ends to tidy up and then we will go."

"Where to? What loose ends?"

His
Sanguis Vitam
hit me most unexpectedly. I didn't even feel it accumulate, no warning, no hint of what he was about to do. He was still sitting there impassively, his face a serene mask of indifference. But his
Sanguis Vitam
hurt like fuck.

I couldn't stop the cry of pain slipping from my lips, the writhe of my body on the bed, the rattle of the frame as my bonds held tight against my arched back. He watched it all in apathy. Completely detached from what he was making me feel. I'm not sure if he switched off from the act of causing me immeasurable pain, but he certainly didn't much care about what was happening.

When I started to whimper pathetically, he stopped.

"You do not question my motives," he said in that deep purr, that somehow soothed away the lingering pain. "You do not demand anything from me. Your sole purpose is to serve. To please. To follow my instruction without hesitation. If I say jump, you jump. You don't ask how high, you already
know
. You predict my desires and perform them. You will learn what pleases me and what does not. And that lesson will be painful. I own you, vampire. I am your master and I can use you as I see fit. Should you disappoint, I can end you. I am stronger, older and more experienced than you. You have no hope in bettering me, your best chance is to
please
."

I listened to every word. I took it all in, despite the circumstances, despite my current position which definitely did not give me the upper hand. I watched his lips move, I didn't blink or breathe, I focused on everything he said, every nuance he did or didn't portray on his face. I paid attention.

But, unfortunately for him, he did not.

"What part of I am not a normal vampire, did you not get?" I whispered into the space between us.

And then I blasted him with every ounce of Light I possessed.

Sure, he turned me, his blood runs in my veins. In some warped universe he
is
, I suppose, my Sire. But I am more than a vampire, more than what he made. Nut had a hand in my creation. She is a Goddess, and in my books, Goddess trumps Vamp any day.

He flew backwards across the room and slammed into the concrete wall opposite, blue chips of paint flaking off where his body hit. A gush of air was forced from his lips in a grunt, the snap of a bone breaking as his wrist hit the wall in an effort to absorb the impact. The crunch of his skull as it slammed back in a whip-like motion against the unforgiving structure behind him.

I had a moment to feel satisfaction and then, I don't know how he did it, he simply disappeared. My heart slammed into my throat, my mouth went dry, sweat broke out over my skin. Because I knew. I just knew. This wasn't over. My Sire was more than I had bargained for.

He reappeared beside my bed a few moments later, the glint of something shiny in his hand was all the warning I got. Then my silver stake was thrust into my chest, directly into my heart, piercing it, damaging it. Destroying it from what I could tell from the excruciating pain that split my chest in two.

I always knew silver couldn't harm me, but both Lucinda and I had suspected a stake to my heart would do the deed well enough on its own. I expected to feel my body disintegrate into dust around me. I wasn't sure if vampires were aware when they combusted upon final death, but I'd always envisaged a split second of knowledge, at the end. That somehow they knew. That I would know too. I may be half Nosferatin, but the part that counts, that burns in the sun, that would finally die if my head was detached from my body, was all Nosferatu.

But Lucinda and I had been wrong. I had a stake sitting in my chest,
in
my heart, and I was still here. In pain, not breathing, not blinking, fangs out and eyes red. But I was still here.

And so was my now totally and utterly pissed off Dark Shadow.

She surged to the front of my mind, I had a moment to experience panic, to try to reason with her, even fight her advance off, because no matter what I thought about her being a part of me and me being a part of her, no one likes to lose this sort of control.

And then she took over, completely and I simply ceased, for that moment, to exist.