Dark Flame (2 page)

He wouldn’t give up though, despite the numbers. He reminded himself of something he’d heard recently, an old quote from a Chinese philosopher, ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’ And this journey was at least a thousand miles, maybe more like ten thousand.

He frowned. He swore he’d heard the saying spoken to him in the past few days, but he couldn’t recall who’d said it? He’d begun to wonder if living in Five Bridges for thirteen years as an
alter
vampire had started affecting his mind.

But as he turned back to his task, rage boiled all over again at the state of the world he lived in. Years ago, Five Bridges had devolved into a ghetto because of the drug and human trafficking that had made a cesspool of the place.

Sometimes his hatred of the flame drugs and their companion
alter
serums got to him. Thirteen years ago his family had been wiped out in one trip to the supermarket. He’d taken his family north from Phoenix to their cabin in Flagstaff to escape the summer heat. His wife had gone to the store for groceries and among the provisions was a six pack of corrupt soda.

He’d heard of this kind of thing happening, but he felt sure his family was safe in Flagstaff. Most of the
alter
serum crimes occurred in the Phoenix area, not in the more remote satellite towns of Arizona.

But over the past thirty years, Phoenix had become an increasingly difficult place to live as had all the major cities of the U.S. A large portion of north Phoenix had become the province of Five Bridges where each of the five
alter
species had been segregated in order to protect the human population.

The U.S. had its own border patrol guarding the entrance and exit points of the five main bridges leading into his world. Human visitors could come and go at their own risk, but only a few
alter
species could leave and then only on official business. Most of the workers at the Tribunal, the main governing body for Five Bridges, had passports that allowed them to travel to the human part of Phoenix on limited business. Everyone else had to stay put or risk on-the-spot execution in the human part of the world.

Unfortunately, the full panorama of the flame drugs had become a highly popular recreational substance. And the three powerful cartels worked hard to keep the supply moving. Humans came into Five Bridges every night by the hundreds, and on the weekends by the thousands, to score drugs and to take advantage of the dozens of sex clubs scattered throughout all five territories.

The world he lived in had become a freak show of drugs and a nightmare of trafficked women who got used up in the clubs. Very few escaped. Most died at the hands of their captors.

He glanced back at the van. The women had emerged and Juliet stood with her arm supporting the one with the bruises and bloody nose. They were a quiet, broken bunch and would need years of therapy to recover.

Brannick shifted the last of the boxes away from the entrance to the tunnel. Moving close to the door, he knocked quietly three times, until he heard the answering response of one rap, a pause, then two rapid knocks. He changed the signal often to alert him to treachery. If he’d heard anything other than the correct order and frequency of knocks, he would have piled the women back in the van and taken off.

He glanced at Juliet and held up his hand to her. She understood and turned to the women, a finger to her lips. Silence fell; no one breathed.

The signal might have been correct, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

He drew his Glock, standard issue for the Crescent Border Patrol, then pulled the door open.

Lily stood there. She was the dispatch operator at the station and smiled as she glanced down at the barrel of his gun. “Good evening, Officer Brannick. Good thing you don’t have an itchy trigger finger.”

Brannick relaxed and holstered his gun. He trusted Lily with his life.

The feisty woman had short, white-blond hair and gold-green eyes. She was tall at six feet and had one of the toughest jobs in Crescent Territory. She had to balance her dislike of half the officers who were on the take with the other half who tried to do some good in Five Bridges.

Their chief, Easton, was as corrupt as they came. He’d been sleeping with the cartels for a long time. Yet somehow, Lily combined pragmatism with a certain amount of stealth and made it all work.

He drew in a deep breath and smiled in return. “How you doin’, Lily? Are we secure below?”

“We are. We have a half-dozen female support staff in place ready to walk the women out. Our contacts are waiting at the other end with an emergency vehicle to transport them to the hospital in Deer Valley.” Lily glanced at the group and frowned. “They’re pretty beat up. Did they come from one of Roche’s establishments?”

“Yep.”

“He’s a real bastard, that one.”

“He’s at least that.”

Neal Roche ran one of the biggest sex and drug trades in Revel. He was hooked up tight with the cartels and was rumored to have a large, underground manufacturing set-up that produced dark flame. The powerful drug supposedly helped some of the more gifted fae in his employ to engage in an intoxicating form of sex during dreamgliding, something peculiar to Revel Territory

Roche also had a reputation for dropping off female corpses at the Graveyard every single night.

Brannick gestured for the women to come forward. They moved slowly, shuffling and in pain, a sight that made him wince.

He moved himself to the far side of the garage as the women drew close. They’d been handled so badly by men that he didn’t want to add to their current distress. He waited as Juliet and Lily ushered them through the door, down the stairs and into the tunnel.

Juliet returned a few minutes later. She appeared at the threshold, her eyes brimming with tears. She crossed into the garage, then turned and closed the door firmly behind her.

He drew close and kept his voice low. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head and pressed the crook of her finger beneath each eye. “Nothing. I’m so happy for them and for a stupid moment, I felt sorry for myself.”

“What? Why?”

She turned to face him more fully. “Honestly, once I saw the tunnel, all I wanted to do was keep walking. They’ll be free, but I won’t. I’m an
alter
fae. I’ll never be free again.”

A feeling of familiarity swamped him once more, as though they always talked like this, like she’d said similar things to him before. Yet he’d only met her once at the club.

The sound of a vehicle on the street drew his attention away from her. He turned to listen. The car stopped outside the house.

He glanced at Juliet. Her eyes were wide as she drew close. The tunnel house was owned by a vampire couple who wanted to help. They were both intelligent and wouldn’t have arranged for any kind of delivery or service appointment at the same hour Brannick was working to get another group of humans into the tunnel.

His heart pounded in his chest. He could hear steps up the walk, a man’s stride.

He followed the sounds, turning his body with each footstep. He drew his Glock, then extended his hearing. The doorbell rang and he listened hard. Carl, the owner, asked, “Can I help you?”

When he heard the stranger’s voice, he cursed softly.

Juliet tapped his telepathy.
You recognize him, don’t you?

He glanced at her, surprised that she could communicate mind-to-mind. The woman had power.

He dipped his chin once.
He’s corrupt. This isn’t good.

What’s he saying? I can only hear a mumbling sound and you vampires have much sharper hearing than the rest of us.

He’s asking about me. He’s saying I told him I was headed over here. But Carl is playing it smart. He says he only met me once in a pool hall near some Chinese Restaurant east of Rotten Row. He doesn’t know why I’d say I was coming to his house. The officer is pressing him, but he’s not getting anywhere, thank God.

He felt Juliet’s hand on his arm. She was trembling.

He held her gaze.
Hold steady. We’re still okay.

She squeezed his arm.
I know.

Our host is shutting the door. The officer is moving away.

The man’s footsteps echoed all the way down the walk. A moment later, the vehicle roared to life and a few seconds later rumbled down the street.

“Oh, thank God.” Juliet turned into him and as though he’d done it a thousand times, he surrounded her with both arms. She shook from head to foot. With his heart slamming around in his chest as well, he wasn’t doing much better.

If things had gone south, he would have been forced to kill the man and the gunshots would have been reported. He was grateful it hadn’t come to that.

Juliet pulled out of his arms. “Sorry, Brann. But that was a close one.” She put a hand to her chest. “My heart is racing.”

He stared at her. Wait a minute. Had she just called him ‘Brann’? No one called him that. His wife had when they’d been married, but no one else and definitely no one in Five Bridges.

A sudden dizziness hit him hard. He stepped away from Juliet. He could barely keep himself upright and stumbled sideways.

He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Brann, what’s wrong?”

There it was again. ‘Brann.’

He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think. He didn’t know what was going on.

Then suddenly, the erotic dream from earlier exploded through his mind, only this time in full color, every sensual detail and smell and taste hitting him like a Tsunami. It hadn’t been an ordinary dream after all.

Juliet was under him and he had his fangs buried in her neck, tasting blood that wasn’t blood. The sounds of her moans pushed him on, drove him harder. He wanted her to come.

He’d said things to her, wicked things. Her hands moved over his back. ‘Brann.’

She’d called him Brann in the dream.

A dream that was more than a dream.

Regaining his balance, he stared at her, his heart pounding in his chest all over again. The reality of what must have really happened struck him hard, like a hammer between the eyes.

“Juliet, what the fuck have you done to me?”

~ ~ ~

Juliet Tunney stared at Brannick for a long, difficult moment. Something had happened just now, but she didn’t know what and she was afraid she’d say the wrong thing. So she remained silent, watching him carefully.

She could hardly breathe. She suspected it might have to do with their secret bedroom activities, but his dream-self had sworn her never to reveal the truth. The real-time Brannick wasn’t supposed to know what they did together in her fae dreamglide.

Yet here they were, face-to-face, and it looked like he’d just remembered one or more of their shared dreamgliding experiences.

She decided the best course, given her gag order, was to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. “I don’t know what you mean, but you seem really upset. What’s going on?”

He narrowed his green eyes. “I’m not sure, Juliet, but what I just saw flashing through my head in extraordinary detail makes me think it wasn’t a dream, but something else. A dreamglide, in fact.”

Juliet had feared this moment for a long time, when Brannick’s sub-conscious mind would finally force the truth to the surface. However, it appeared he was only recalling one dream and not everything that had happened between them.

She shuddered just thinking about how Brannick would react once he knew the whole truth, especially how their affair had gotten started. She was guilty of breaking a law, a big one in both Revel Territory and Five Bridges. Once Brannick knew what she’d done, he could prosecute her.

She needed to buy herself some time.

She glanced at the closed tunnel door. “We need to get this job done, then get out of here.”

Brannick glanced at the boxes then back to her. “You’re right. But then we’re going to talk.”

“Of course.” She’d have to stay calm and let him lead the conversation. She didn’t need to tell him anything he couldn’t remember.

He headed over to the scattered tubs, bags and boxes and started picking them up and moving them back into place.

She offered to help, but he said he’d prefer to arrange them according to weight and it would be faster without her assistance.

She didn’t argue. If anything, she wanted distance from him right now.

She moved to the van. The sliding door was still open, so she reached inside and grabbed a bottle of water from the small cooler. Water would help. Staying hydrated in the desert, even for an
alter
fae, was important.

The van was sufficiently large and her ass just small enough that she could sit on a combination of the floor and the running board. Wearing a dress, she angled her knees away from Brannick.

She unscrewed the lid of her water bottle and took a sip, then repressed a heavy sigh. She’d been dreading this moment for months now and couldn’t believe it had come. Although, she suspected it had happened because they were together physically for the first time since the dreamgliding sex had started up.

She’d been warned this could happen. Her sage teacher, Agnes, had told her all about dreamgliding, how it was done and how only fae of a certain level of power could engage in a dreamglide. Though it was also true that the dark flame drug could prompt dreamgliding even in humans.

She could kick herself for not having provided a secondary transport option for the women. Mary always drove which had prevented Juliet from ever seeing Brannick in real-time.

Up until tonight, Mary had been completely reliable. But life happened, especially in Five Bridges, and moving forward Juliet would engage a back-up driver.

She took her cell from the pocket of her dress and checked for a text from Mary, but nothing was there. So, where was she?

Juliet smiled. Mary was tall, blond and gorgeous and had been a model in her previous, human life. She always had men buzzing around her. Maybe one of them had finally caught her eye, and Mary had lost track of time.

The van would stay in the garage for at least a week, and Juliet would fly out with Brannick, just as Mary always did.