Most Wanted - A Fantasy Romance Novel (The Shadow Blade Series)
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Authors: E.L Friel
MOST WANTED
(The first novel in the Shadow Blade Series)
Copyright © 2013 E.L Friel
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of E.L Friel to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
MOST WANTED
The first book in the Shadow Blade Series
There were dives
and then there was
The Spithound
,
which was the kind of place that made your average dive seem like a penthouse
suite at The Beverly Wilshire. Ariel sighed and pushed open the door, feeling
the comforting pressure of her knife hilt pressing against her anklebone, and
smiled when she saw the idiot with the ten thousand dollar bounty on his head
sitting at the bar getting drunk. This would be like stealing candy from a
baby.
The stench of
stale beer, cigarettes and unwashed bodies almost made her eyes weep. As it was
she had to cover her mouth when she walked inside. It was loud, some truly
hellacious punk metal band torturing their instruments on the makeshift stage
in the corner. The girl singer had long blonde hair hanging in tatty ribbons to
her waist and skin as pale as a Sucker’s. The sweat beading her brow confirmed
though that she wasn’t a Sucker.
But Ariel’s
Spidey-senses were tingling. Someone in the place was definitely not human. She
scanned the dingy bar. It was busy. There were a dozen bikers – no
surprise given the bar’s location next to a truck stop, a couple of
shifty-looking guys with questionable facial hair hanging out by the bathrooms
who Ariel figured were either pimps or dealers or possibly just hipsters, and a
handful of starved looking girls who were probably looking to turn a few tricks
and earn enough for their next fix. Over in the corner, sitting in a booth
nursing beers, were two guys wearing trucker caps pulled low, shading their
faces. They were all disappointingly human though.
Frowning, Ariel
turned to the dance floor and finally spied them - three Suckers head-banging
along to the band, no doubt eyeing up dinner in the form of the greasy-looking
drummer in the Clash T-shirt. She imagined they’d go for him over the singer
with the ratty blonde hair. There was barely enough meat on her bones to make
it worthwhile. Ariel watched the three Suckers for a moment, transfixed by the
way their white skin gleamed like polished marble under the reddish lights, and
by their slightly amped up movements. She ran through a few scenarios whereby
all three of them ended up headless decorating the bar but then decided that a
little random slaughter and mayhem wasn’t what she was there for. She had to
focus on her hit. She needed the ten thousand dollars more than she needed to
partake in a random massacre.
It was too
crowded in the bar. There were too many witnesses to cause a scene.
Despite the fact they were in the human
realm and despite the fact
True Blood
and
Twilight
and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
should have taught people something
(though admittedly nothing that useful – Suckers didn’t sparkle,
werewolves didn’t exist, and humans who killed demons weren’t called Slayers,
they were called Blades), most humans were oblivious to the fact that demons
walked among them.
Ariel scanned
the bar again. Where the hell was he?
She had good
intel that he was there. It was a known Sucker hang out. Among all the pimps
and meth-heads they didn’t stand out so much and the food pickings were rich.
Suckers were mainly bottom feeders, the catfish of the demon world. Ariel liked
to think of herself as a Great White come to rebalance the eco-system.
She finally
spied Ezekiel sitting on a stool at the end of the bar. She shook her head, feeling
almost disappointed at how easy it was going to be. He was sitting hunched
over, a beer in his hands. A row of empty shot glasses was lined up in front of
him. Ariel’s heart rate quickened and she felt a rush of adrenaline flood through
her veins. It had been a while since she’d had a hit and she had to caution
herself to slow down, take her time, and not rush in.
Jax’s attention
was immediately captured by the girl who had just walked into the bar. She was
about five eleven, though two inches of that was heels, with long dark hair,
luminous green eyes that scanned the place like a hawk eyeing a field of mice,
and curves that begged to be mapped by hand. What was she doing in this
shithole of a place? She didn’t look like a working girl, and was far too
attractive to be a meth-head or a demon.
‘Jax!’ Cy
snapped his fingers in front of his face. ‘Focus.’
Jax tore his
eyes off the girl who was still standing in the doorway and fixed his attention
back on Cy, though his awareness remained firmly on the girl. There was a crew
of bearded, heavily tattooed bikers over in one corner who had also noticed
her. Beneath the table he flexed his thigh, feeling the blade rubbing along the
inside of his boot.
‘There’s a group
of them on your patch.’
Jax frowned at
Cy.
‘You want help
sorting it out?’ Cy asked, swigging from his beer, grinning at Jax as he did.
‘No,’ Jax
answered, distracted by the scent of the girl as she passed by the table. He
sniffed. She wasn’t wearing perfume but her scent was strong. Intoxicating
would be stretching it, but it was something close. ‘I got it,’ he said. Cy
always liked a fight but he had enough trouble in his own sector. And Jax had
never needed help before. It was a point of pride.
Cy was glancing now
over Jax’s shoulder. ‘Looks like trouble,’ he murmured, his hand moving under
the table, to his boot, where Jax knew he also kept a blade.
Jax turned
around and saw the girl was now standing with a hand on one hip, facing off
against one of the bikers.
Halfway between
Ezekiel and the door a man cut in front of Ariel, blocking her way. He was
about her height, but with a belly that made him look ten months pregnant with
triplets and a beard that probably housed a family of rodents. He was staring
at her chest as though he’d never seen boobs before.
‘You know,’
Ariel said to him with a seductive smile, ‘if you want to look at a pair of
breasts why not just stand naked in front of the mirror?’
His mouth
dropped open and his eyes flew finally to her face. She rested a hand on one
hip and watched his expression transform into a snarl of fury.
‘You b–’
he began.
He didn’t get to
finish his sentence. Ariel moved so fast he didn’t even see her hand come up,
but he did feel it slice like a blunt machete into his neck. Brute force trauma
to the vagus nerve. One of her favorite moves. The guy blacked out straight
away, tumbling to his knees and smacking his head on the edge of a table. Brute
force trauma to the skull. Shame. Ariel stepped over him.
‘Some men can’t
handle their liquor,’ she said, flashing a smile at the group of bikers who’d
turned in alarm to stare at their fallen comrade. One rushed to help him, the
others just watched bewildered as Ariel passed by.
Cy and Jax were
instantly on their feet, but before either could make a move, the girl had done
something and laid the fat, leather-clad bastard out. He collapsed to the
ground, almost knocking over a table.
The girl stepped
over him as though stepping around a cockroach and headed on to the bar.
‘I don’t think
that’s a girl that needs rescuing,’ Cy said, sitting back down, grinning.
Jax watched her
as she pulled up a seat next to a skeevy-looking Sucker. What the hell was she
doing? Cy was still laughing. ‘Maybe she’s a Sucker lover,’ he muttered.
Jax scowled, his
gaze sweeping the bar. There was a bunch of Suckers over on the dance floor
too, eyeing up the band like it was feeding time at the zoo. Why’d a girl like
that choose a bar like this? Even if it weren’t crawling with demons there were
the leery, drunk bikers and strung-out pimps to contend with. ‘Damn city’s
getting overrun,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Well, you
handle your sector and I’ll handle mine,’ Cy answered. ‘All we can do is try to
stay on top if it.’
Jax took another
swig of his beer, contemplating Cy’s words. The city of LA was divided into
twelve sectors, each one policed by a single Blade. There were too many demons
and not enough Blades though, so the Blades focused instead on keeping order,
killing only the demons that were causing the most trouble. In a way, all the
Blades had become was a form of pest control. The rats and cockroaches weren’t
going anywhere. No matter how many they killed, how many times they
exterminated a nest, within a few weeks they were back, in even greater
numbers.
‘Why’d you want
to meet here?’ Jax asked, watching one of the dealers palm a twenty-dollar bill
and slip a wrap of something to one of the girls working the place. The bar was
on the periphery of Cy’s sector and they’d never met there before.
‘I’m meeting
Willa here, later,’ Cy said, tossing some peanuts into his mouth.
Willa was
another Blade, new to LA. Cy had been training her for the last six months but
Jax was in no doubt that Cy’s version of training involved a lot of horizontal
workouts.
‘We’re going to
do a little clean up,' Cy said now, smiling deviously, his eyes twinkling,
giving Jax an idea of just how he managed to convince so many women to climb
into his bed. He jerked his chin towards the dance floor. ‘Just a little
containment.’
Jax nodded
absently, his foot tapping beneath the table. Truth was he was finding it hard
to concentrate knowing that girl was still sitting behind him at the bar next
to that skinny little Sucker. He glanced once more over his shoulder and saw
she’d struck up a conversation with him, but over the caterwauling of the
singer on stage Jax couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Cy pulled his
buzzing phone from his pocket just then and checked his messages. Shoving it
back in his pocket he stood up grinning. ‘I gotta go. Willa wants to meet at
her place.’ He downed his beer in one and tossed another handful of peanuts
into his mouth.
Jax shook his
head. Cy treated women like they were M&Ms and the factory was going out of
business. He wouldn’t ever say anything but in his opinion it was never a good
idea to get involved with another Blade. You might never know when you needed
to ask them a favor. And it was never wise to screw with someone who killed for
a living. The break up could get messy. He’d seen it happen.
‘Stay out of
trouble,’ Cy said, grabbing a last handful of nuts and tearing out the bar.
A part of Jax
envied him the freedom Cy had, the way he picked up women, the intimacy he
shared with them, however fleeting. He nursed his beer, trying to stop his thoughts
from wandering to Neve. He eyed the Suckers on the dance floor from under the
rim of his cap and tried to formulate a plan.
He guessed he would wait until the bar
closed up and get them when they walked out, but then again there was that
group of Suckers Cy wanted him to investigate. He’d heard they were hanging
around under Venice pier causing trouble. There were a lot of them, around
twenty according to Cy, which was unusual. Suckers never usually formed such
big nests. They were usually loners, he guessed because they weren’t known for
their scintillating conversation or for their loyalty.
Still, despite
the fact he knew he should go and investigate, something kept Jax glued to his
seat. It wasn’t the music that was for sure. It wasn’t the Suckers on the dance
floor either. As he sipped his beer, Jax’s attention was solely focused on the
girl behind him. Like a vibration buzzing through his body he could feel her.
Even without looking he could sense her movements, could picture the way she
was leaning over the bar, could pick up the strange rhythm of her heartbeat. It
was as if from the moment she’d walked into the bar someone had wound a thin
silver filament around his sternum and that this girl – this stranger
– had a hold of the end and kept on tugging.
Ezekiel was
about thirty-five, but in Sucker years he was probably eighty. He was skinny,
rat-faced, with sunken eyes, and looked like he’d been feeding off meth-heads
for the last decade. He turned towards Ariel slowly and did a comedy double
take, almost falling off his stool. Ariel rested her elbows on the bar, giving
her push-up bra a little help. God, she hated wearing these things, and make up
too, but it sure made things easier. Sometimes she thought her breasts were her
best weapon. So long as her victim’s focus was on her chest they never noticed
the knife coming. When she saw Ezekiel’s eyes dilate and his tongue flick out
to lick his lips, her fingers itched to draw her knife. But, she told herself
somewhat reluctantly, she wasn’t there to kill Ezekiel, just to kidnap him.
‘Buy a girl a
drink?’ she purred.
Ezekiel’s beady
eyes stayed fixated on her cleavage. She was going to need to take a shower
after this. He was clearly drunk, swaying like a broken stemmed flower on his
seat.
‘I would,’ he
said, giving Ariel a smile that she imagined he thought was charming but which
made him look even more like a drunken serial killer. ‘But I’m all out of
money.’
Ariel pouted.
‘Well, that’s a shame,’ she said, leaning in closer and suppressing the gag
reflex.
The Brothers had
issued the warrant for Ezekiel’s arrest two days ago but unlike most warrants
there had been no information on the crime he’d committed. Ariel was assuming,
being the low-life Sucker he was, it probably involved something to do with
killing another Sucker or stealing, or another low level crime.
Oh, whatever. It
wasn’t important what he’d done, just that she capture him, take him to the
Brothers and get her bounty. Flicking her eyes across the bar, Ariel saw that
the guy she’d knocked out was now sitting on a chair with his head between his
knees, rubbing at his neck. She should have hit him harder, she thought to
herself. His biker buddies were mainly ignoring him, chatting to a couple of
girls in mini-skirts and ripped fishnets, probably agreeing on a price. She
looked away. LA was such a depressing place to live. Take that back, this whole
realm was such a depressing place to live.
