1 Dicey Grenor (34 page)

I smiled at Aaron,
who stood frozen near the door, to ease his anxiety. It would have been better
for him to have had an idea of our bond before I pulled that hocus-pocus, but
sometimes you have to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.

He sat in a corner
lounge chair and ordered a coke from a waitress.

After several
minutes had passed without Ming returning, I decided to go let her know I was
leaving with another ride. Sending the message to Aaron as I walked away, I
went to the glass stalls in search of her…to ditch her properly.

“Yeah,
Monroe.
She’s at the bar. You want me to kill her now or wait for
backup?”

I stood in the
doorway a safe distance from her back as she listened then hung up. She put the
phone back in her purse and lithely pulled the chopsticks from her hair. The
ends of the sticks were so
sharp,
I was surprised she
hadn’t bled her scalp. Guess
,
she was prepared to
stake
me with them. And I’d bet two million dollars there
was also a lighter in her purse to burn me right afterwards.

She hadn’t turned
around yet, but I knew she knew I was there.

“So, did Monroe
tell you to wait so he could see my beautiful face again?” I said.

She unhooked the
shoulder straps of her purse, slid it to the floor,
then
turned to face me. Holding the straps, she began peeling the covering from
them, revealing solid, thick silver chains. After hooking her cross necklace to
the silver chains, she tugged both ends apart to demonstrate how sturdy her
weapon was. I was no weapon expert, but after watching a few samurai movies, I
figured the thing looked like a
manriki
.

And only
professionals used those.

Her usually flirty
tone was replaced with assassin-like coldness.
“Nope.
After the money they’re paying me to work undercover this long, he told me to
drop your ass right here then meet him to collect my bonus.” She moved into an
offensive posture. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Chapter 43

“You’re a smug
twit and he’s a presumptuous dickhead,” I said.

She laughed.
Loud and haunting.
“I know you were ready to make
lesbo
love to me, but I have different orders.”

No time to set her
straight on that one.

Too busy ducking
and dodging her assault as she rushed me fast, with skill and determination.
Chains were swinging from all directions as I bobbed and weaved. Speed was my
greatest asset since my lack of skill was a liability. I was too quick for the
silver to make contact…until she popped the cap off her cross and tossed garlic
extract in my face.

The smell was so
strong.
Too poignant for my delicate senses.
It landed
on my skin, seeping into it, causing me to bleed from my eyes, my ears, my
nose. It cost me speed. Cost me some standing.

Then she stabbed
me with the cross, pushing forward as hard as she could until my back was
against the wall. I yelped as the silver began to burn. Grabbing at the end of
the cross to pull it from my chest didn’t help much because my hands burned as
I touched it. But I was tenacious. I kept pulling.

When I saw the
sharp points of her heels coming towards me, I managed to protect my face this
time.
Thankfully, her kicks with the pointy stilettos,
punctured holes in my forearms rather than my forehead.
But her purpose
was not frustrated. She rolled to the floor and bounced to her feet before I
could say
karate
and came at me again, chopsticks in hand, swinging with
all her might. Grunting as she did so.

I left the cross
alone. Let it burn. I had to worry about her other tactics.

Every instinct
told me to move fast, get out her way. Dip. Weave.
Block.
Roll. Repeat. But I was slower.
And in pain.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t let her catch me again. Just as I was about to make an
offensive move to end the battle, she faked like she was aiming for my gut,
twirled around instead and landed a power kick to the side of my head.

Fucking
bitch.

While I staggered
and struggled for balance, she jumped and kicked the other side of my head.

I vaguely saw a
woman come in the bathroom and quickly rush back out. She’d either gone to get
help or she was getting the hell out while she still could. She knew like I
did, this fight was going to demolish the bathroom.

Looking at the
doorway a split second too long had cost me. It gave Ming the opportunity to
stab me twice in the chest with her lethal sticks. One second I was on my feet
about to land a blow to her nose, the next minute I was flat on my back. That
had been three stabs too many.

Why did the one
Asian woman I know happen to be an undercover VET agent AND be skilled in
martial arts? If there was a time to avoid the stereotype, this would have been
it.
But
noooo
.
Not with my
luck.

My ass was getting
kicked now, but if I survived this, I’d enroll in somebody’s tae kwon do class
ASAP.

“Get up, Willow.
Don’t make it so easy on me. Even Ivan put up a bigger fight than this.”

I froze. “What do
you mean?”

“I’m talking about
that golden-tongue mustang who used to fuck you, babe. Shame, what happened to
him.
”

I leaped to my
feet, moving in a blur. Punching her face, her chest, her stomach so hard, I
hoped to drive a hole through ’til I touched the wall. She grunted this time
from the force of my strikes. Intending to pound her into wishing she had never
met me, I brought my fist back far and wide—something I was certain was
probably a bad move, but realized too late. She dropped to the floor at the
last second and I punched through the wall. It gave way as pain racked through
my hand, up my elbow, to my chin. Was I rattled to the core? Yes. But I was
angry more than anything. Ming had killed Ivan,
dammit
!

And she’d fucking
called me
babe
!

She laughed again.
“That’s much better. So you vamps do have hearts.” She wiped blood from her
nose and mouth then spit out a few teeth. “You should have seen your face when
I mentioned Ivan. It’s not the first time I’ve seen fangs, but yours got
looong
. And your eyes…
ooooo
, man!”

Holding on to my
arm, I asked, “Why? Why did you do it?”

She lightly
touched the side of her jaw to test how bad it was. She’d need ibuprofen before
bed tonight. “I planted a GPS tracker in your bag.”

“The night you
asked for a tampon?”

“Yes. I couldn’t
believe I got away with it.” She shook her head, pleased with herself. “Anyway,
the night I was planning to pay you a visit, Monroe and I had met in
Hades’s
parking lot. Ivan eavesdropped on our conversation.
When I went to your hotel room, he followed. And since I can’t do that nifty
memory-erasing trick you can, I had to kill—”

My arm and stab
wounds and burning flesh be damned! Lurching towards her with super speed, I
upward kicked her groin like she had balls, then grabbed her head and angled
it. I sank my fangs in her neck and sucked.
Intending to
drain her dry.
Making sure she would never speak another word about
Ivan.

I didn’t need her
blood.
Didn’t want it either.
But I didn’t want her to
have it anymore.

Several gulps in,
I realized she tasted funny. Was she anemic? Was she pregnant? Was she on
steroids? Max had mentioned you could tell certain things from the taste of
blood, but I wouldn’t know what to look for.

Suddenly, my
stomach literally grumbled. It roared.
Loud enough to hear.

I threw her from
me and dropped to my knees, holding my gut like it was going to detach itself
and run away. After recently experiencing food poisoning, I knew that was not
what this was. It was something worse.
Something
supernatural.
Something about her blood was drawing my energy from the
outside in.
Making my body suck itself dry.
There was
no heat, no burning.
Just coolness.
It overtook me
like the coolness I’d experienced at my human death. Then it progressed to ice
coldness.
Frigidity.
Constricting and shriveling me up
as if from frostbite.
From subzero freezer burn.

I looked down at
my flesh tightening, wrinkling, shrinking. At this rate, I’d be a prune within
minutes. I had five, ten minutes tops to do something about this.
To reverse the effects of her toxic blood.

But I couldn’t
move. Couldn’t do anything as my gut continued to protest, my body continued
withering.

I stared at her
with wild red eyes as whatever voodoo she’d put on me did me in. She took out a
lighter and waited.
Grinning.

“What are you?” I
asked, surprised my lips could still move.

“Human. That is
all.”

“What’s wrong with
your blood then?” I said in a small voice. Pretty soon, I wouldn’t have a voice
box.

“I’ve been hunting
bloodsuckers for five years. That’s longer than you’ve been a vampire. I’m not
new to the game. You learn tricks of the trade.
Keeps you
alive longer.”
She stood slowly and walked closer to me. “I’ve been
drinking holy water every day since my first vampire bite a couple years ago.”

Awesome.

Not.

Where in the hell
was everyone getting all this holy water? I’d been in church all my
life,
and I couldn’t come up with a handful of people who
could bless their dinner, let alone bless all this H
²
O.

Just as she
flipped open the igniter that would finally end my existence, Aaron burst
through the door. He had tackled Ming and tightened his belt around her neck
before I could scream
help
. Then I noticed the cold, calculating,
barbaric way he was pulling the ends of the belt.
The calm
satisfaction in his eyes as he stared at me.
One of his legs pinned both
of hers down as she struggled to get away.
Struggled to
breathe.

She had stopped
moving, stopped breathing, stopped living before I realized the beautiful
Israeli who had saved the night was not Aaron.

Was
not
Remi
.

“Who are you?” I
whispered.

“I’m the one who
has to do all the fucking clean up,” he said in a Russian accent.

“You do all the
killing you mean.”

“You complaining?”
he said as he got up and brushed his slacks off.

After going to the
doorway and telling someone who was trying to enter that he had to help a
drunk
friend, he went to the sink. He stood in front of the
mirror and began looping his belt, pulling his shirt cuffs down, straightening
his collar, washing his hands. Then he grabbed some paper towels, ran water and
soap over them and started cleaning Ming’s blood off himself.

“I thought
Remi
had killed Aaron’s kidnapper,” I whispered.
Barely.

“You thought
wrong. I do the killing. He does the fucking.”

He had kept Ming
from turning me into kindling, but the holy water-blood tonic was still in full
effect. Spending eternity as a dried fruit did not appeal to me.

“Thanks for your
help,
Vlad
, but I need another favor. I need blood.”

He turned to me
and surveyed my condition, paying close attention to my bloody fangs. After
pursing his lips like he had resolved an issue, he got down next to me and
rolled up his sleeve. He offered his wrist even though I would have preferred
the neck or femoral artery.

He held still as I
fed.
As I stared into the beautiful eyes of a heartless,
soulless killer.

Let’s just say, I
wouldn’t be captivating
Vlad
to put him on a schedule
any time soon.
Once a year or every six months wasn’t good
enough for him.
We needed him to shift whenever he was good and ready.
He was an essential alternate whether
Remi
and Aaron
knew it yet or not.
Especially if he was willing to kill to
save us.

Chapter 44

His blood filled
me out like air inflates a balloon. When I was full of his life force, I told
him we needed to take Ming to Hades. There was a warm room in the basement that
had her name on it.

He lay on the
floor with his eyes closed, unmoving. For a moment I thought he had fallen
asleep. Until I shook
him
and he opened his eyes to
take in his surroundings.

The way his eyes
lit up when he saw the splayed Ming on the floor told me
Remi
was occupying the body.

And he was getting
turned on.

“I did it again?”
he said.

I shrugged. If he
thought he had killed Ming, maybe it was best for him to continue believing
that just like he did about Aaron’s kidnapper.

When he crawled
over to Ming and began opening his fly, I thought I was going to
barf
all the blood I’d just had. Didn’t think I had the gall
to watch him fuck her corpse on the bathroom floor of a public place.

He leaned over and
rubbed her blood all over her face like a kid in art class painting the sky.

I turned my head.

Until
I heard the stream.
That was odd.
Not at all what I
had expected to hear.
So I turned back around and saw a scene I had not
expected to see either.