Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3) (25 page)

“You shouldn’t tell lies,” Sophie said as she walked up. She kicked dirt in my face when she stopped, her boots mere inches from my nose.

So he wasn’t going to kill me yet—or
he
wasn’t going to kill me, but someone else was. Emil pulled me to my feet and I considered whether he’d tear my arms off if I tried to run again, and then I froze.

Malcolm was coming, the distant feel of him like a taste that wouldn’t quite touch down on my tongue. But another vampire was much closer.

“Sydney.” His voice still shredded me. Names had power, and mine on his tongue clicked all the tumblers on the lock of my mind. Shivers wracked my body, following the fault lines he’d created. A surge of power rolled out of him. Cold and sick-making, it crawled over me, seeking entrance.

I shuddered, but didn’t break. I didn’t turn to face him and fall to my knees the way he was wordlessly ordering me to. Clenching my left fist to hide the blood pearl forming there, I stared at the side of Sophie’s silk collar. She wasn’t wearing her glamorous face, which seemed odd since this was their big night. But then I felt it, a kind of syrupy sludginess in her energy. My eyes flew to hers and she met my gaze grimly. She’d been taking Radia, even after I’d told her what it would do. And she was scared. One more person that Abel would destroy in his quest for power. You couldn’t design a better asshole.

“
Richard
,” I said, turning to face him. “What, did you get thrown out of your own party?” My voice was as frosty as his greeting was forceful, and for once he was the one who wavered.

“
Y
ou’ve come back
to me. Like a good little pet.” He recovered quickly, and his anger almost covered his uncertainty. But it was too late. They knew that I’d changed.

Emil stiffened and Sophie’s lips twitched up, almost forming a smile. The sensation that signaled Malcolm ratcheted up, a cable pulled tight, and Abel finally heard his approach. He growled before he shot past me and the two collided with an unexpected sound, like a massive hand slapping against water. A spray of rocks pelted us, thrown up by their collision off the side of the road.

I peeled the blood pearl away from my skin with my nails and shoved it into my pocket. With a party in full swing, everyone at Tenth World would be focused on what was going on inside. I wasn’t even sure Chev would notice us, outside of her borders. How long until someone realized Abel was gone, and would that person be sympathetic to Mal? He could endure a lot, but he’d fought his way here and the amount of blood he’d poured into Soraya had to have weakened him.

I couldn’t physically intervene, but I could do something.

“Kevin’s in the van,” I said as I squinted into the darkness, flinching at the sounds of each strike and grunt. “If you still want him.”

“Get the human,” Emil said.

Sophie huffed and slinked off. People were crawling out of the limo, two humans that had fared worse than me. Either they were really well paid, or they’d been enthralled and sent out to intercept us.

Emil steered me toward the road. I resisted and his fingers dug in until he was dragging me. The ground trembled beneath my feet from the force of the fight, and the darkness was welcome. If I’d been able to see Mal, his fangs fully extended, tearing into Abel and being torn into, I wouldn’t have been able to think straight. My wits were the only thing I had going for me right now.

“Abel’s going to lose,” I said. “You know that.”

“He’s fine. Your boy’s the lightweight.” Emil shoved me onto the pavement and I let myself drop just to get out of his hands. I laughed, forcing the sound out through the tension in my chest.

“You believe that? Seriously? Two decades working for Master Bronson and you think he’s a
lightweight
? Ask your fearless leader why he hates him so much. Ask him what Mal did in Anchorage, what he did to that old Russian family that everybody thought was so fucking tough. Bronson doesn’t keep losers around. That’s why
your
boy had to scheme for months to get his foot in the door.”

“Shut up.” Emil crossed his arms, his hands fisted against tense biceps.

“You know what, don’t worry about it. I’m sure that Chev will listen to your petition after your guy’s dead. She’s charitable like that. Real flexible. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Pushing to my feet, I brushed myself off and tried my very best to appear unconcerned, and like I wasn’t scoping the distance to the border. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was, but it felt close.

Sophie carried an inert Kevin toward us.

“This isn’t going well,” she said, her brow puckering.

“It’s fine,” Emil ground out. “He’s got it.”

A vampire growled and metal shrieked as the side of the SUV that had pursued us crumpled. The human driver ran toward us, then darted back across the headlights as he tried to avoid the skirmishing vampires. Please be okay, Mal.
Please
.

I took two steps backward. Sophie dumped Kevin on the ground, where he promptly howled, rolled to his knees, and tried to run. She shoved him hard, jamming her heel into the small of his back to keep him down. I took another two steps. Definitely close.

“This is taking too long,” Emil said, glancing back toward Tenth World. “Watch them.” He peeled off his shirt, then took the time to fold it and set it on the pavement. I backed away as he jogged off. Any second now, Sophie was going to pounce on me.

“You were right about the hunger,” she said, and I rocked to a stop. Her voice was eerily calm. Resigned. “I can feel what it’s doing to me, this drug. He forced it on me. A demonstration for the new master.”

“You chose to follow him.”

“We were falling apart. We needed someone stronger but no hive would have us. We knew that Richard Abel didn’t need to belong to a master to be strong. We didn’t know he would take strength from us.” She twitched, then rolled her shoulders as if to ease discomfort. “We never should have joined him. He demands too much.”

She didn’t turn around.

I ran, the fury of vampire power rending the air behind me, the feel of Mal’s effort and pain snagging at me like barbed hooks. Every nerve in my body rebelled at the idea of moving away from him, but I couldn’t help him, not from outside of the territory. He could handle whatever they dished out. He was stronger than they understood. I repeated that to myself with each step.

The border was a palpable thing, wild energy snapping in bursts on one side and a steady, uniform pressure on the other. The feel of it sharpened and grew denser when I breached it, as if zeroing in on my alien presence. I tripped and fell to my knees, skinning them on the pavement.

Emil cried out. It was a frantic, desperate sound that almost distracted me from a flare of Malcolm’s pain that nearly bent me in half. He could handle it, he could. I stood and shoved my hair away from my face, then moved sideways until I was in the middle of the road. Clearly visible in the stretched light from the cars.

“Stop,” I yelled. Sophie turned on me, eyes bright but narrow, and for a second I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it. But I steeled my spine and threw all the attitude I could muster into my voice. I backed away, as though aiming for the saving border I’d already crossed. “Stop or I’ll go to Bronson. You think a few hours under his wing will trump the crimes you’ve committed? He’ll—”

“He’ll what?” Abel asked, suddenly so close that his breath was a humid cloud against the back of my neck. I shrank into myself when his arm snaked around my upper chest. Where was Mal? “You use his name like a threat, but he has accepted me. You are only human. You don’t matter.”

He pulled my hand up, turning my arm so that the underside gleamed pale in the light of his eyes. My heart pounded, fast and hard, and I gritted my teeth to stop myself from begging him to let me go. He wouldn’t kill me. He liked hurting me. And Chev’s rules were explicit.

“I prefer you afraid,” he whispered before he jerked my arm back and bit into the heel of my palm. Knowing what was coming and accepting it were two different things.

I screamed and shoved at him, clawed at the arm encircling my chest. He laughed against my flesh, then the fangs retracted and settled in. His mouth closed on my skin and my entire world dissolved into pain. My heart felt heavy, as if a rock were pressing on it, and I sagged.

“No,” I croaked, before shaking my head to clear it. I kicked back at him, connecting with a leg that felt hard as granite. “No, no, no!”

“No.” Chev descended on us, a whirl of black hair and fabric engulfed in luminescence. She tore the vampire off of me, but rather than tossing him away, she raised him up. Suspended a foot off the ground, his pale eyes were wide over a mouth red and full of fangs.

“This guest has injured you?” she asked without looking at me. I pressed my hand against the bite mark, trying to stop the hot flow of blood.

“Yes.”

“And did you want him to?”

“Tell her,” Abel rasped, influence burrowing into my mind. I reached for Chev instinctively, pulling from her to deflect him. She turned then, looking directly at me, her eyes impossibly bright.

“What are you?” she demanded.

“Human. And I did not want him to hurt me.”

She leaned close. I had to close my eyes so that I wouldn’t be blinded.

“Almost a lie,” she whispered against my ear. “Almost.”

I’d wanted her to intervene. I’d exchanged his bite for her presence. I hadn’t wanted the bite. She turned to Abel, and satisfaction rolled out of her. No, she didn’t like him at all.

“Violence is not permitted here,” she said.

“We are outside your grounds,” he insisted, arrogant instead of pleading. As if she didn’t know every inch of her territory.

“No.” She pointed to a spot about three feet away, then drew a line with her finger to where we stood. “You were inside of it.”

A muscle in Abel’s cheek twitched, and his glare was as sharp as a knife. I smiled bitterly. You go ahead and glare at me. Glare all you want. You hurt me. You hurt my friends. Weak, scared, human, I still ended you.

“Richard Abel. You have violated the rules of my home.” Chev spread her hand across his chest, long, tawny fingers full of power. And, with her will, she tore him apart. He exploded, her energy tearing through and out of him. A fine mist of blood drifted to the ground, darkening it. The rest of him was simply gone. I’d expected something tidy and discreet.

“Oh, holy…” My knees weakened and I swayed.

Malcolm caught me and I grabbed hold of him. His energy was frantic, a swarm of hornets buzzing against me, but it felt so unsubstantial that I couldn’t tell if I was in shock or if he was close to collapsing. When I turned toward him, his hand covered my eyes for a moment before he pulled me against him and pressed my head into his neck. His scent, comforting and crisp, was muddled beneath the iron tang of blood.

“Have you ever gone anywhere without making a mess?” Chev asked, her normally flat tone lifted with exasperation. The feel of her focused attention made me wince. “You used me.”

“As you used us,” Malcolm answered while my mind stuttered under the accusation. I mean, yeah, I
had
, but it wasn’t like I’d invented her rules.

“I asked you to root out a problem,” Chev said.

“Which I did,” Mal replied. “He sent his people to harass your feeders. Unrelated, he attacked us.”

“You were working for her, too?” I asked.

“Humans are fragile,” Chev said. “But those in our care are to be protected. What happened to you is not acceptable.”

“They aren’t the only ones you need to be worried about,” Malcolm said. “There are some people west of here you need to speak to. Local hires. Mercenaries with no qualms against trying to burn vampires out. I suggest you look into whether there are more nearby who share their ideology. You’re too limited, Chev. You need to secure more than this swath of land if you want to continue to rule here.”

It didn’t seem like a good idea to taunt a vampire that had dissolved someone with her mind, but Mal seemed more angry than worried. His hand skated up my back, pressing me closer.

“One day, Malcolm Kelly, you’re going to step on the toes of someone who does not care that you are right. They will only care that you didn’t mind your place.”

“I meant it only as a friendly warning,” Malcolm said. “I like what you’ve built here.”

“So do we.” Chev wandered away, looking over the wreckage.

“We made it,” I said on a long exhale.

“Did you doubt we would?”

I looked around. Shattered cars. A motionless lump that used to be Emil. The stain that was all that remained of Richard Abel.

“Everything happened so fast. Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He smiled, his eyes dark and tired-looking. Blood trickled down his neck and I had to search to find a clean place to kiss him. His skin was cool. Usually fighting made him run hot, and the unexpected sensation pulled my thoughts into sharp focus. He was strong, but he’d been pushed hard in the past few hours. He could still be taken from me, and I wanted all the time I could get with him. I just needed to take care of some unfinished business first.

“I need to speak to Bronson,” I said, turning toward the resort. A thin stream of lights marked the path between the building and us. Chev’s staff, coming to clean up the mess so that her guests wouldn’t be disturbed.

“This isn’t the best time,” Mal murmured. “Let’s go in, let things settle first.”

My hand curled closed around the punctures Abel had made. With Chev radiating power the way she was, they were already closed. Sophie and other of Abel’s acolytes milled about near the wrecked vehicles. None of them looked particularly comfortable, but who would after your boss exploded into a bloody cloud?

“I guess we can wait a few minutes. Let me check on Kevin, then we can go. He was out for a while after we crashed.”

Malcolm closed his eyes and shook his head, denying that image.

“It was only a small crash,” I said apologetically.

“I heard it from a mile away. There was nothing small about it. Promise me you’ll be more careful, after this.”

“Cross my heart,” I said. We’d be together. There wouldn’t be any reason to take risks.

Kevin sat on the road, dazed, his legs sprawled out before him. I crouched in front of him, wincing at the raw pull of my skinned knees.

“Hey, we need to get out of the way while they clean up.”

His chin tipped up. His eyes were owlish behind dark frames.

“Did you see what she did? That’s some CGI shit, r-r-ight? We’re still in LA and wandered onto a movie set or something?
Right
?” His pupils dilated slightly as he peered over my shoulder. Power billowed around me. Bronson.

I stood. The Master wore a tuxedo with a pine-green bow tie and held a wineglass full of…not wine. A shudder ran through me, clenching my spine and making my shoulders shake. His eyes flashed white in one instant, then darkened in the next.

“They are still celebrating Abel’s ascension into my ranks.” He gestured over his shoulder with his glass before raising it to just beneath his nose. Not drinking, just scenting. “And now the celebration must become a funeral.”

“He had it coming.” My hand clenched again, fingertips brushing the thick scabs where Abel’s teeth had been. A hard seed formed on the roof of my mouth and I swallowed carefully around it. Had anyone ever choked on a blood pearl?

“You should have given him to me,” Bronson said, tilting his head toward Chev though his eyes remained on me. “He was my responsibility.”

“He was
my
responsibility,” Chev said as she swept past. “As is everything here. If you will excuse me for a moment.”