Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) (24 page)

“What?  What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

“Memory loss, Katrina… remember,” Stacia said, grimacing at her own twist on words.

“Oh yeah. Right.  Well it’s like this, slugger.  You smell like the most delicious meal possible to vampires.  Something about your blood.  It would be like the smells of the six best meals you could imagine all rolled up into one mixture.”

“So what?  Are you gonna try and bite me?”

“Oh, hell no!  Are you insane?  Did you hear the supervampire on the phone?  She
literally tore seven vampires
apart.  Like rag dolls. Arms, legs, and heads ripped clean off their bodies.  Then she split their chests open with her
hands
, yanked out their hearts, and pinned them to the wall.  All seven hearts lined up, spiked head high on the wall of the room she found them in!”

“Didn’t they fight back?” Stacia asked.

“Fight back?  Of course.  For all the good it did them.  Listen, blondie, you’re pretty good for a wolf, especially one who’s only been at it for a couple of years.  You and I would have a pretty good bout.  But Tanya?  She’s instant death!  Two of the vampires were over five hundred years old and armed with swords.  The others were all over one-fifty.  She just took them apart—barehanded.  Four different vampires told me about it.  They were all part of Tanya’s security team, so they know her, but even they were completely shocked.  Get this through your heads, both of you," she said, poking a finger at me, “
you
are her Chosen!  Forever, for always, till the end of time!  She is the only vampire
born
to the race! She does stuff that even Elders can’t. And she is absolutely without mercy or humor when it comes to you.  More so since you had to flee.”

I tried to process all that, but I just couldn’t put it together.  I had only the barest of memories of this beautiful girl and no memories of any other vampires.  Katrina was the only specimen I had to go by, and right now, still wearing most of the sleeping bag, she looked like a demented teenage worm-girl with arms.

“Okay, tell me more about this Coven.  It sounds pretty complex… lots of rules and politics.  I’m not good at political stuff,” I said.

“No shit, Sherlock!” Katrina said.  “Okay, let Auntie K school you.  We’ll cram what we can into that thick, damaged skull of yours in the time left.”

Stacia gave her a nasty glare at her description of my head, but it rolled off the youthful-looking vampire like water on Teflon.  After a moment’s pause to gather her thoughts, Katrina launched into a lesson on vampire politics.  Surprisingly, it was well thought out, concise, and full of useful facts.  It lasted till Stacia pulled into an underground parking garage in Manhattan and turned off the car.

Instantly, the vehicle was surrounded by really serious-looking people who had so many weapons that they appeared to grow from their skin.

“Here we go!” Katrina said as we stepped out of the car.  I didn’t like the nervous tone in her voice.  I was worried enough as it was.

Chapter 25

They were all vampires, I just somehow knew it.  And they were older than Katrina, for the most part.  And despite their professional demeanor and outwardly calm appearances, they were, to an individual, scared.  Even the big Russian who seemed in charge of the security detail was worried.

The group in front of us split apart, allowing another group of three to approach.  They were all female and my instant impression was that all were attractive, but that’s where all comparisons stopped.  Along with my breathing.  The girl in the middle was
her
, but my meager memories had done her no justice at all.  Heart-stopping… breath-stealing… time-freezing.  None of those phrases come close.  Glossy rich black hair the color of space, eyes so blue, they burned.  Skin a perfect creamy white.  She wore black leggings and a clingy green shirt and she looked so good, it had to be illegal in every state.  Like walking-talking-living sin.

My vision had shrunken to include just her and her alone; the sound of my heart pounding filled both ears.  I could literally
feel
the emotion coming off her in waves.  Love, joy, desire, fear of loss, uncertainty, need, lust, and possessiveness were interwoven with jealousy and not a little anger.  She also wanted to bite me… very badly.

“Tanya, he’s lost a lot,” the pretty blonde vampire on her left said.  This one was staring at me with focused eyes like she was trying to see inside of me.

“I can tell, Nika,” Tanya replied, never looking away.  She moved closer, her lithe body graceful.  Before I could quite prepare myself, she was directly in front of me, her eyes finally moving off of mine to study my forehead.  “I don’t see anything.”

“It healed almost instantly,” Stacia said from behind me. 

Things changed fast.  Tanya was gone, the wind from her passage ruffling my tee shirt.  I turned and found her holding Stacia by the throat with one hand, bending the werewolf girl over the hood of the Volvo without effort.  Her fangs were fully extended and she was slowly moving down to Stacia’s neck.  Not going without a fight, Stacia’s clothes ripped and tore as she shifted into a beast-woman form, muscles expanding and jaws reforming.  It wouldn’t do her any good.  I knew that, deep in my core, the same way I knew that I couldn’t possibly stop the insanely fast vampire from killing Stacia.  Even with Grim’s speed, it wasn’t possible.  The vampire was as fast or possibly faster than my alter-ego.

“
Stop
!” I yelled.

Tanya’s head turned as if on a pivot, the rest of her body frozen, easily holding the thrashing were.  At my word, Stacia stopped fighting as well, turning her glowing, green wolf eyes as far in my direction as the steel hand clamped around her throat would allow.

“I remember you… I
feel
you!  Here –" I said, patting my chest. “Inside me.  I can’t remember almost anything of before, but I somehow
know
you.  And I know that you can feel me, right now!  So feel this—if you kill her or hurt her, then I am through!  Whatever we had and might have will be gone!”

“You would leave me for her?” the ebony-haired girl hissed, her face contorted with sudden pain.

“I
will
leave you if you hurt her.  I don’t know much about my recent life.  I… I can’t remember anyone or anything but you.  But I
know
she is my friend!  I know it! And she has done nothing but help me and have my back since I was shot.  You
cannot
kill her without killing something between us,” I said, moving closer to my vampire.  And she was
my
vampire.  I knew that—at the cellular level, maybe.  But my words were honest, and she felt the truth of them through whatever it was that linked us.

She let go of the blonde werewolf’s neck, standing upright and moving in front of me in one eye-blurring movement.  “She wants to take you from me!  I will not allow it!” she protested, her voice just a sibilant whisper.

“I know that.  She’s been nothing but honest about it.  In fact, she’s been nothing but honest with me from the moment I woke up.  I think… I feel that she was honest with me before I got shot, as well.  And Tanya, no one else has been completely honest with me.  I feel like even you have kept things from me.  Am I wrong?”

She didn’t answer, but the link between us did.  She
had
kept things from me.  Things she felt it was safer I didn’t know. I answered her unspoken words.

“See, that may be true, but
I
still need to know those things, even if it endangers me.  So you see, she’s my friend.  She says she’s in love with me, and I have to take her at her word.  I can’t help how she feels, but I can tell you she has been a true friend through everything.  In fact, she could have lied about dozens of things when I awoke last night, standing in the woods with a dead vampire assassin.  But she didn’t.  I don’t think I have too many friends, let alone ones that are that honest with me.  I can’t afford to lose a friend like that.”

The waves of emotion I felt were shame, discomfort, and intense, white-hot fear of losing me, along with jealousy.

I took her deadly hands in mine, wondering at the feel of them, seeing them like it was the first time, which to the current me, it was.  “Tanya, I have lost almost everything I had for memories,” I said. “But I can feel this bond between us.  And I get memories back when my dark half is out.  That gives me hope, which I haven’t really had much of since last night.  I need you, I can feel that.  But I also need the few friends I have.  Last night, an assassin blew two years out of my head.  Today, a band of witches tried to roast me for a book.  I’m told that yesterday afternoon, I somehow closed a portal to Hell, and the night before that, I had to exorcise three little girls all at once.  I needed help to handle all that, and I get the impression that things are only just getting started.”

She just nodded, internally struggling with the fear for me that my words had invoked.  She swallowed, then turned to Stacia, who was almost back to fully human but otherwise hadn’t moved.  “He is mine!  He will always be mine!” she said in a deadly tone. “But it seems possible that you may have helped him or even saved him. So despite your coveting my Chosen, I will let you live.”  Then she turned from the barely clothed were and back to me. “I will tolerate any who protect you, but that’s it.  Get his stuff.” She directed the last bit to one of the security vampires.  Another vamp opened the tailgate of the Volvo, then jumped back as Awasos landed lightly on the concrete floor, holding a luggage bag in his teeth.  It was Stacia’s bag, and the giant wolf carried it to her, dropping it at her feet. 

“Thanks, ‘Sos,” she said quietly.

“You, too?” Tanya asked the big beast, who just woofed at her softly.  He, too, was, in his own way, explaining his opinion of the platinum were girl.  Shaken by her first meeting with the supernatural force named Tanya, Stacia was doing a good job of regaining her composure as she took undamaged clothes from the bag and pulled them on.

The tension in the bond had lessened enough that I was able to spare some attention for the group around us.  All of the vampires had been on a hair trigger, all had been watching their young leader from the corners of their eyes. They were walking on eggshells, like bomb technicians handling nitroglycerin.

I had, according to all accounts, been gone for three days.  Apparently, it had been a bad time in the world of New York vampires, and if I was correct, the generator of those unhappy moments was standing five and a half feet tall, directly in front of me.

A siren whooped, echoing off the underground garage walls.  An NYPD cruiser rolled around the corner from the street ramp, followed by a second one, both with their lights flashing.  The driver powered down his window and looked us over, chewing gum while he did so.  If the weapons displayed by the security vamps were of concern, he didn’t show it.

“One of you named Gordon?” he said to all of us but looked directly at me.

“That’s what they tell me,” I replied.  The passenger door opened and a dark suit stood up.

“The Commissioner wants to see you,” the new guy said.  Tall, middle age, good condition, fairly high up on the police food chain.  Likely a Lieutenant or higher.  How all that came to me, I don’t know, but the information was just there, stuff I just seemed to know.

“Why?” Tanya asked.

“He don’t explain stuff to us… Ma’am,” the uniformed driver said, studying her appearance and liking what he saw.

“The Man just said to find you and bring you in.  Said you hadn’t returned his calls,” the suit said.  “You coming, or do we gotta bring you?”

I thought about that for a bit.  I
could
resist.  Really, really well. But then I’d have the whole department after me.  For what?  Refusing a meeting with the Commission of the NYPD.  Nah, if I went to war with the forces of New York, it’d be for a better reason than that.

Tanya and her blonde friend both turned and looked at me incredulously as I ran through that.  The little Goth-looking vamp who had also come with Tanya had a worried expression on her cute little face.  Stacia just looked puzzled.

“Alright.  Although I wasn’t ignoring his calls.  I just don’t have a cell phone anymore,” I said.

“Tell it to the Man,” the suit said. “We don’t really care.”

Thirty-five minutes later found us pulling up to One Police Plaza.  Tanya, Awasos, and I piled out of the back of the first cruiser, while Stacia, the blonde Nika, and the little vampire who was named Lydia got out of the other cop car.  The two vampires ignored the werewolf as much as they could, and Stacia just bore it with stoic grace.

The conversation where I explained that the four women and the big wolf dog would have to accompany me had been interesting.  The cops were happy to ogle any and all of the women, but their orders were to just bring me in.  Add on an almost-three-hundred-pound wolf, and it got a bit tense.  The boys in blue gave in when Tanya spoke to them in an odd tone of voice.  Flashbacks to Star Wars and Obi Wan Kenobi popped into my head. 
Those,
at least, I could remember.

The cops in the lobby all turned and watched our little procession as the suited cop took us up the elevator to the Commish’s floor.

The office we were ushered into was plush and impressive.  Beautiful wood, fine furniture, expensive drapes, and carpet.  Lots of photos with important people.