From the Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (3 page)

“Is everything alright, Juliette?” she asked finally.

I shrugged, trying to re-form the wall of indifference around my heart, which after talking to Mark had begun to crumble. “I’m fine,” I replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, far be it for me to pry into someone’s personal life, hon, especially someone I don’t know all that well, but ever since you got that call from the English fella this morning
—”

“He’s Irish,” I corrected her automatically.

Her lips twitched. “Okay, the
Irish
guy. Ever since he called you’ve been a bit…twitchy. And just now I observed you on a phone call that made you cry.”

I stiffened and looked away from her, now even more angry at myself for having allowed my moment of weakness to be observed. Karen sighed, then said, “Look, I know it ain’t none of my business. I’m sorry I asked. But I kinda thought we were becoming friends, so… I just want you to know that if and when you are ready to talk about whatever’s going on, I’ll listen. And I won’t judge you.”

Internally I had to laugh. If only she knew that she was talking to a girl who could turn into a dog, and that I had not only recently added an actual vampire to my list of friends, but that his half-breed sister would be joining my family within the next year. Oh, how that story would freak her out!

But I reminded myself then that Karen seemed really nice. I could tell she just really wanted to help me. And maybe I couldn’t tell her about
shapeshifters and vampires, but I could, if I had the nerve, tell her I’d been kidnapped and raped, and that I was not having the easiest time dealing with that. During my waking hours I had quickly become adept at not thinking about it because I kept myself busy with work and constant exercise. I had even taken to putting large puzzles together and then taking them apart just to do it all over again—anything that kept my mind focused on something other than the memories of what I’d been through.

At night, however, when I was too exhausted to stay awake, I could not keep those memories at bay. My subconscious never failed to draw them out, forcing me to relive the hell of being beaten and tortured, of having been forced to endure two vampires pushing themselves into me for their own sick pleasure while I was tied down and too weak from an injury to fight them off.

“Thank you, Karen,” I said at last, chancing looking at her and seeing simple concern in her eyes. It reminded me a little too much of that which I’d seen in the faces of my family and Lochlan before I’d left, but somehow it was easier to bear because I still didn’t know her very well. “I… I had some horrible shit happen to me a few weeks ago. I’m not ready to talk about it—I don’t even like to think about it.”

Karen gave me a sympathetic smile. “Honey, I understand completely how you feel. Like I said, if you ever feel like letting it all out, just say the word and my ear is yours to talk off, okay?”

She looked at her watch then. “Oh, I better get back inside before JayReese burns the place down.”

I looked up at her as she stood and thanked her again. Realizing as she walked away that I actually felt a little b
etter knowing someone who didn’t know me from Eve was willing to listen to my sorry-ass tale of woe, my appetite suddenly returned. I wolfed down the rest of the pretzel and then practically chugged the frappé through the straw. I gave myself a brain freeze for my efforts, which made me feel like laughing.

***

As the day wound down and the end of my shift neared, I looked forward to going home to my room at the hotel, where I would change into some sweats and go for a jog. Given the emotional rollercoaster I’d ridden, I felt the need to exert myself. A part of me wanted very much to shift into my animal form—I’d not done so since the Day of Hell, and as if the Siberian Husky I turned into had a mind of her own, the dog within me wanted to run free. I had to admit that I kinda missed her, but I didn’t know any place in Cleveland where I could go and just be my canine self. I decided then and there to look for a dog park near where I lived so that I could let my girl loose.

After saying goodbye to all my co-workers and receiving a meaningful glance from Karen, I clocked out and headed for
the bus stop. After catching and riding the number eight to the stop closest to the Motel 6 I had been staying in, I hopped off and started the four-block trek. As I was approaching the alley separating the first and second block, a scent on the air had me freezing in my tracks.

Vampire.

Shit!
I thought immediately, looking around to see if I could find the leech. Two weeks I had been living here, and not once had I smelled that awful identifying stench of theirs. For that matter, I’d not met a single werewolf or shapeshifter, and I was fairly certain that a city the size of Cleveland had a few of each supernatural species. I knew two full vampires and one half-vampire personally, and the one I’d just detected didn’t smell like one of them. I’d suspected since this morning that Lochlan was in town spying on me, but if he was he hadn’t shown his face yet, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that now would have been a good time.

People on the sidewalk, though there were few, were beginning to look at me funny so I forced my feet to keep moving, wondering as I did so why this particular vampire had decided to venture out in the daytime. I kne
w from my association with Saphrona that despite the fact that vampires didn’t actually burn in sunlight, few ventured out in the daytime because of what
could
happen—they could up and fall asleep in an instant as if they were narcoleptic (which, I suppose, they really were given how much melatonin they produced during daytime hours). Falling into that coma-like sleep made a vampire extremely vulnerable, and they abhorred vulnerability. Stemming from the persecution they had faced centuries ago, most vampires had found it easier to accept and embrace their nocturnal physiology and they stuck to living the night life (the real reason, of course, being that it was simply safer). Usually only “pretenders”—those that chose to work amongst humans—would go out in the daytime, and even then most of them preferred to work night jobs.

I very nearly passed the alley between the two blocks, but as I was stepping into the road to cross to the next one, it dawned on me that the smell
was actually coming from down the alley itself. I backed up and flattened myself against the building, utilizing my sensitive hearing to listen for tell-tale sounds.

“Where the fuck have you been, boy?” I heard a gruff male voice say.

“Look, Merrick, I’ve already told you—I’m done. I’m not going to help you guys anymore,” said another male.

A callous-sounding laugh, presumably from the one called Merrick,
erupted at the same moment I heard the rustle of clothing and the scraping of feet. I chanced a peek around the corner and saw a large, mean-looking dude holding up another guy by the shirt. Instinct warred with caution inside me: my animal half wanted to run in and save the guy who was clearly being harassed, but my other half reminded the Siberian that I wasn’t sure yet which was the vampire. Sure it was most likely the one who had picked up the other guy, but even I knew there were some human men who could lift another, and if the big one was human, as my nose told me one of them was, he was probably high on something.

I was going to have to get closer to them to figure out which was which.

Carefully, I eased myself around the corner and into the alley. The two men were about halfway between where I’d come in and another alley that crossed perpendicular to this one. There were dumpsters filled with trash and who knew what else on either side of the narrow passage, and I made my way as silently as I could toward the two men.

Merrick, who had both ha
nds fisted in the other man’s shirt, shoved him against one of the trash bins loud enough to draw attention from either end of the street. Of course, no one actually paid any heed to the noise. Humans, more often than not, simply chose not to get involved. They were too afraid for themselves to help someone else. As to whether or not it was a good thing I wasn’t entirely human…well, that remained to be seen.

“You don’t seem to get it, do you,
mutt
?” Merrick with a sneer. “There is no ‘done’ where you’re concerned. You don’t get to walk away. Or slither, or run, or fly. You fucking do as you’re told.”

What the hell is he talking about?
I wondered at the same time the fellow in the air said to his captor, “I don’t give a damn how much you intimidate me, bloodsucker! I’m through being your fucking errand boy!”

So Merrick was the vampire, I mused, inching closer and wondering why it was that so many asshole vamps had names that began with the letter M. Sniffing the air, I did my best to separate the vampire’s scent from the stink of the overflowing dumpsters, and finally was able to zero in on the source
—it was definitely Merrick. At the same time, I was also noticing that the guy I’d assumed was human smelled more like a mixture of human and animal, and began to wonder if perhaps he was werekind. But just as quickly as I had the thought I dismissed it. I was rather adept at identifying one of my kind by their scent, and he certainly didn’t smell like any of the breeds I’d ever encountered.

“The only way you get out is if you get dead, freak! And believe me, I’d be more than happy to help you out wit
h that!” the vampire growled.

His prisoner laughed. “I’d love to see you try, when you ain’t had the stones to
take me on yet. Does your mommy know you’re here, vampire?”

Oh my God, was the idiot
trying
to get himself killed?! I wondered in amazement. Realizing then that if I was going to do anything at all it had probably better be soon, I knelt and did a quick breathing exercise to prepare myself for my first phase in three weeks, and said a silent prayer of thanks that the light breeze on which Merrick’s scent had been carried to me was still flowing my direction, as he apparently hadn’t yet noticed I was there. For that matter, I was surprised he hadn’t heard me, given that a vampire’s hearing was even more exceptional than that of a shapeshifter.

Of course, his not hearing me was about to change…

Widening the stance of my crouch, I planted my hands on the ground and phased. Given that there was a human involved and I had no ability to make him forget something that big, I couldn’t shift into my battle form, which was a husky about as big as a horse. Hell, even the other humans passing by would notice that! I just had to hope that the innocent-looking, normal-sized dog that was my usual alter ego was enough to distract Merrick so the man he held nearly a foot in the air could get away.

Merrick might n
ot have smelled me, but when I shook myself out of my work clothes after I transformed, he certainly heard me. The rustle of the fabric being kicked away sounded exceptionally loud in the relative confines of the alley even to me.

“Who the fuck is there?” Merrick shouted. “Better show yourself, asshole!”

Emitting a whine from my throat, I stepped slowly around the dumpster I’d hidden behind. I’d had to pretend to be a dog for most of the last year when I was Mark’s guardian, so I had the act down to a science: Whine, lower head, and walk slowly as if wary of being reprimanded. Merrick appeared to buy it; he started laughing as he all but dropped his companion to the street.

“Will you look at this?” he queried rhetorically. “Is this thing yours? Did the pet get
himself a pet?”

I
didn’t have time to wonder at the oddity of his words—I was too busy praying he didn’t take more than a cursory sniff of the air, for if he did, Merrick would surely catch on that I was no ordinary dog. I paused in mid-stride and whined again, lifting my head slightly to look between the two men. The vampire laughed again, then turned his attention back to the slightly smaller human and pointed his finger in the man’s face.

“Better rethink that attitude of yours, freak, if you want to keep breathing. I’ll be in touch…
real
soon.”

After shoving his victim again, Merrick took off at vampire speed,
his form a blur as he raced toward the perpendicular alley. When he had disappeared around the corner (he obviously didn’t care about being seen), the human and I were alone.

He turned to look down at me and I backed away. In part because I was still acting, and in part because now that I could see his face, he looked disturbingly familiar
—though for the life of me I couldn’t place where I might now him from (my only guess was that he had come into Cool Beans sometime in the week that I had been working there). The stranger was tall, though not quite so tall as my brother, who was six-one; I pegged him at no more than two inches shorter. He had blond hair paler than Mark’s straw-colored mop, and a pair of hazel eyes that seemed bottomless. If I knew him, how could I ever have forgotten that face?

“Hey there, boy,” he said softly. I growled at him
—why was it that people always jumped to the conclusion that a strange dog was male? The man, who I was trying not to see as attractive (and it struck me as I looked into his eyes that he really,
really
was), chuckled and held his hands up in a position of surrender. “Sorry. Hey there,
girl
. Thank you for wandering in here when you did. I mighta been pounded into pulp if you hadn’t.”