Phoenix Fallen (2 page)

Two evenings later, lights popped and flashed in the huge glass atrium of Phoenix Inc. A small crowd of reporters and photographers milled about waiting for him to begin. Jules smiled and tried not to let his irritation show.

He hated this.

The bullshit of hosting fundraisers for rich people who cared more about impressing other rich people with their ‘generosity and tolerance’ than actually supporting the cause they came out for had never been his thing. But the Summer's End gala was approaching and a press conference was necessary.

As Kelsey had pointed out over Skype yesterday.

"I can do a conference from here, Jules, but we're a Chicago-based entity, and our popularity just took a major hit. We have to do one on site, too.
You
have to."

That major hit being that he and Kelsey had been turned into shades, into goddamn
vampires.
Possibly the most hated shades of all. Kelsey didn't speak the words, but he'd heard them loud and clear.

She'd hesitated, looking at his face with that constant layer of concern that had started to annoy the hell out of him weeks ago.

"Do you need me to come home for this?"

He'd wanted to point out Chicago was no longer Kelsey's ‘home’. Paris was her home now. They both knew it. But old habits die hard. Some harder than others.

Jules hated being in the limelight. He always had. That was why, even though they were legally partners straight down the middle in everything to do with Phoenix Inc., that Kelsey was the CEO and he was listed merely as VP of operations. Let her deal with the PR crap, he’d never wanted it and she was good at it. But with Kelsey on the other side of the world, Jules had no choice but to step up and he knew it.

"No. Stay in Paris and eat your damn croissants. I'm fine."

Kelsey was already coming back for the ball itself in five weeks and her wedding was only another month or so after that. Her wedding to The Marquis of Saintonge, Miles de Rousseau. The bloodsucker who’d killed them both.

Who had
saved
them both, Jules reminded himself, with considerable effort.

Kelsey had too much on her plate already. He could carry his own weight for once. She'd continued to study him, her golden eyes blurred slightly in the stream, but sharp as ever in their ability to read his mind.

"Miles thinks…we still think it would be a good idea if you—"

"I gotta go, Kels."

He'd refused to have that discussion again. He didn't need newbie vamp therapy, for god's sake.

He'd dealt with shades his whole life. Jules knew what it meant to be a vamp, knew everything there was to know about the fucking monsters.

Jules knew that term wasn't PC, especially for a man who had dealt with the stigma of being a para since he was a pre-teen, not to mention being black on top of that. He understood the banal stupidity of prejudice all too well. But his views had been written in blood and not logic.

He didn’t need mollycoddling. Didn’t need a hand to hold. What he needed was not to be a vampire anymore. Since that wasn’t happening, he just had to get on with things.

Why couldn’t everyone understand that?

“Do you feel that the direction of Phoenix Inc. is going to change now that both its partners have become shades?”

Jules stared at the reporter that had brought him out of his daze. O'Leary, he thought. Cullum O'Leary. From the Tribune.
That Irish prick.

He plastered a smile on his face.

“The para and the shade communities have always shared certain attributes. Being considered different and strange, scary—”

“Most paras aren’t monsters, Mr. Gentry.”

Jules gritted his teeth, but made himself say the words he didn't believe. “Most shades aren't monsters, either.

The fuck they weren't.

"Neither Miss Daeger nor I chose this path deliberately and I can assure you, the only significant effect on Phoenix Inc. at the moment is that my hours have changed.” That got a chuckle from many in the audience. “Next question?”

O'Leary sat back, his lips twisting as if he wanted to press the point, but in the end the reporter let it go.

An hour later Jules was having a much-needed drink at the Dirty Socks, a bar close to Phoenix Inc. headquarters. He really wanted to head back to downtown and de-stress with some music, but didn't feel up to a run in with that vamp singer after the day he'd already had. The bartender brought him another Hennessy without being asked and Jules looked up.

“It’s on him."

Swinging his head around, Jules saw Cullum O’Leary get up from a table and walk over to take a stool next to him at the bar.

Jules groaned.

“Give it a rest, will you? I gave at the office.”

“Relax, I’m not here to grill you. I just want to know if you believe all that bullshit you said today—about things not changing for your company.” Slim, with messy black hair and keen light green eyes, O'Leary was at least six or seven inches shorter than Jules and close to half his weight, but there was steel in the man. He wasn't the type Jules could intimidate into backing off.

Jules knew this, but old habits die hard. He gave the journalist a stony look, not saying a word.

“Off the record?” Cullum smiled like a shark.

Amused despite himself, Jules took a sip of Hennessy before replying.

“Nothing is off the record with you bloodsuckers.”

Cullum shrugged, a glint in his eyes.

“You should know, eh? You’re a bloodsucker for real now, you and your partner. Hell, from what I hear Daeger is about to marry the most influential damn bloodsucker on the planet. If you figure that isn’t gonna change anything, Gentry, you’re either delusional or stupid and I know you ain’t stupid. You gotta know your company’s rep just went down the fucking toilet.”

Jules shrugged. “You don’t give people enough credit.”

“Nah, I give them way more than they deserve and you know it." Cullum ran a hand through his unruly black hair and smirked. "People may be willing to give paras the benefit of the doubt nowadays, but shades? Not so fucking much.”

“What is your issue, O’Leary? Phoenix is a good company. You know that. What Kelsey and I are has nothing to do with that. You've been trying to dig up dirt on us long enough and we always come up clean.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘clean’, Gentry.” O’Leary gave him another smirk before taking a swallow of his beer. “But what I know to be true and what I can print are two very different things.”

“Shove off, O’Leary.”

“Believe it or not, man, I like your company. I think you do good work, which is why I haven’t done more than rattle some of those skeletons in both you and Daeger’s closets. I got a little sister who's a para that owes her job at Illiana to you guys and what you do.

"But things are gonna change now. They’re gonna change fast and they’re gonna change hard. People don’t like shades and they sure as hell don’t trust them. There's too much bad blood there, man.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jules sighed. “You think I wanted this? If you know so much about those ‘skeletons’ in my past, you know damn well I never would have chose this shit.”

“I think choice has very little to do with it. It ain’t gonna matter what, when, who, where or why, Gentry. All people are gonna see is that the face of Phoenix has fangs now. Your supporters are gonna scatter like frightened bunny rabbits.”

“And what do you think that will mean for paras, like your sister?”

“Exactly my point, Gentry. Give damage control some serious thought. Like yesterday.”

Huh. Was the guy actually concerned? Well, he could join the damn club.

Phoenix's stock had plummeted since news had spread about his and Kelsey’s 'condition'. Senators’ offices were already avoiding their calls and sponsorship for the ball was down more than twenty percent. Kelsey figured it could’ve been even worse than that, but many of their donors had paid months in advance, well before the events in Paris. Jules gave his glass a slow spin, not looking at the reporter.

“It sounds like you already think it’s too late.”

“Nah, not yet. but if you don’t make some hard decisions real quick, it will be.” O’Leary gave him a nod as he stood up. “Enjoy the drink.”

Jules only stared at the golden liquid for a few minutes before getting to his own feet. He needed something with more kick, especially after that conversation.

He headed to Spears Woods, his feeding center of choice at the moment. Spears was always overrun with bleeders, sunset to sun-up, and it was within jogging distance. At least for a vamp it was.

Bleeders were the new breed of blood donors, humans who offered their services to any vamp who cared for a bite. They were addicted to the high. And the pain.

The first time a vamp bit someone, there was always agony. Fitting, in Jules' opinion. However, once 'inoculated', that pain turned into a rush of pleasure and ecstasy that was hard to duplicate with any drug. Hence, bleeders.

There were many different varieties, but bleeders were big business nowadays, highly regulated for the most part. It was a pity, but all those old movies made before the Reveal had happened — the ones that always seemed to have the 'good' vamps surviving via blood bank — had turned out to be so much bullshit. Only fresh blood from a live body worked.

Within a minute outside a human body, the sensitive genetic material that allowed vamps their parasitic existence began to deteriorate. Given five minutes, the blood was utterly worthless.

Bleeders' licenses were now sold in every state in the union. There were exclusive clubs, private bleeder transport services that would deliver licensed, tested and supposedly willing bleeders right to your doorstep. For a hefty fee, of course.

The type of bleeders that hung out at Spears were the lowest of the low and they didn't charge a dime.

Undocumented, and frequently turned out by police, the bleeders here were bottom-feeders, having no care beyond their next high.

Jules jogged up the park maintenance road. His breath coming in hard, fast pants after the ten-mile run, even though his heart wasn’t beating fast, or beating at all, not
really.
His undead body only went through the motions of its former functions, spurred on by the ever present need to feed.

How he hated this shit.

He hated the stupid press conferences and the fact he had to be the one out there, instead of Kels.

He hated the fact that everything he worked toward for so long was one bad news story from being piss in the wind. But most of all, Jules thought as he broke through the tree line at the top of the ridge, he absolutely and irrevocably hated the piece-of shit monster he had become.

With a growl, he grabbed the first person he saw, a dazed-looking woman in her mid-thirties who barely looked at him before she lifted her chin and dropped her watery-brown gaze. Neither of them said a word as he bent and sunk his fangs into her jugular. The blood rushed over his tongue, bland and lifeless, but his thirst didn't care. It only wanted more.

"Well, that can't be pleasant."

Jules raised his eyes at the words. It was the redhead from the club. His horny torch singer. Rissa.

The vamp.

What the hell?

She was dressed in khaki pants that hugged her curves, a crisp white coat belted around her small waist. The hood was pulled low to hide her bright hair, but he would have recognized her anywhere by that voice alone.

“What the hell are you doing here?” His fangs slid out of the bleeder's skin and she fell to the ground at his feet. Jules stepped away, grabbing Rissa's arm as he yanked her further into the trees. She frowned up at him. There was disappointment in her look. Disappointment that stung, even as it pissed him off. She had no right to judge him.

“Slumming, I expect. Same as you, right?”

He didn’t buy it. She wasn’t the type to utilize a place like Spears.

“Bullshit. Your kind doesn't 'slum'. You’re spying on me.” It was the only thing that made sense. No way her being here was just a coincidence.

She raised one perfect eyebrow, her pale skin practically glowing in the darkness. “Well, somebody’s full of himself.”

“And somebody’s full of shit.” He admired her coolness, even as he called her on it. For a moment their eyes battled it out, then she huffed out a resigned sigh.

“Oh,
fine.
I caught your little press conference on the TV earlier and came out for a look. To Phoenix Inc. You weren't there. Sooo…I followed your scent to this lovely place."

Rissa looked around and shuddered delicately.

"Curiosity is a weakness of mine. Someday it will be the death of me, I expect. Oh wait...” she wrinkled her nose at him, in a way that managed to be both sexy and cute.

Jules rolled his eyes, even as he held back a smile. “Are you always such a pain in the ass?”

She tapped her chin with a long, slender finger, emphasizing the dent there. “Let me think…
yes.
That would be a yes.”