Rise of the Fallen (5 page)

"You're better than the sun for what I need."

"Is this some kind of trick?" Apostle eyed him
suspiciously as he dialed.

Micah issued the shifter a cold, dead stare, but he wasn't
so far gone to lack understanding of the dreck's suspicion. Of course this
would look like trickery to one who was accustomed to the precarious
relationship between their races – a relationship in which the vampire usually
sought to do the ass-kicking rather than ask for one.

"My reasons are personal, dreck. But I can assure you
this is no trick. I'm done. Checked out." Micah took out a cigarette and
lit it. He figured now was as good a time as any to take up a bad habit, seeing
as he wasn't going to live past the hour.

Apostle's eyes narrowed. "So, you want us to kill
you?"

Micah nodded, squinting as he dragged off the cig. He blew
out a stream of smoke, scrutinizing the shifter. He didn't want to go on like
this. The nightmare of his life grew more agonizing day-by-day. Hour-by-hour,
actually. Not even the brutal cutting was doing it for him, anymore. He was out
of control. He didn't want to live. But he wanted one thing before he died.

"I need you and your friends to grant me one
favor."

Apostle tilted his head with suspicious curiosity.
"Killing you isn't enough?" When Micah only stared back at him, he
sighed. "Fine. What?"

"I want you to beat the living shit out of me before
you kill me. You got me?"

One eyebrow cocked on Apostle's face as his mouth quirked
into a satisfied smirk. "No problem."

* * *

Samantha shut the door to her dressing room and took off her
mask then hung it on the wall. Another shift at the Black Garter was over.
Thank God.

She wasn't wearing much, just red lace panties which she
quickly peeled off and threw in the laundry, then she got dressed to go home.
Tips had been good tonight, and she was that much closer to being completely
free. She grabbed her bag, opened the door, shut off the light, and waved to
Ted and Jose, the bouncers, as she slipped out the back.

Sam's skin crawled as she left the gentlemen's club and
crossed the parking lot. She just wanted to get home and shower, as she did
after every shift. She didn't have sex with the men – only danced for them. But
some still touched. The only way she could endure the degradation was to remind
herself that she only needed to do this a couple more years and she would be
able to buy herself a new identity and a new life.

Still, it didn't make the after-effects of every shift any
easier.

Her keys jingled in her hands as she approached her car then
suddenly she heard an outburst of laughter coming from inside the parking
garage across the street. But this wasn't normal laughter. This was the raucous
laughter of men doing bad things to someone.

Looking around to see if anyone else was near, she found
herself alone. Of course, it was nearly four o'clock in the morning. Who would
be out at this hour besides an exotic dancer and a group of thugs engaged in
what sounded like one hell of a beat-down?

A voice in her head told her to just get in her car and
leave – to forget what she heard and go. But the ex-military veteran who had
been beaten by her husband for eight years cold-cocked that voice into silence
and then gave her a shove as if to ask what in the hell she was waiting for.
Before she knew what she was doing, she had grabbed her Beretta out of her bag,
along with the extra clip, and rushed across the street.

Flat-backing herself against the wall with her gun held
close, she peeked around the wall to see what was going on. Damn! Five men –
well, she thought they were men, but they looked a bit…
off
– beating a
sixth man. The sixth wasn't resisting, even though something about him made Sam
think he could easily take all of them, despite his inferior size. Not that he
was small. He just looked…well, he was too thin, like he was sick or hadn't
eaten in a while. The five beating him had long, black hair and their skin had
an odd bluish color. Something seemed strange about them, but maybe it was just
the lighting.

"Hey!" She jumped into the open and pointed her
gun at them. "Get away from him."

Five sets of eyes turned on her as the sixth man fell to his
knees under one of the garage's overhead lights.

Not backing down an inch, Sam stepped closer, poised to open
her own can of whoop-ass if they didn't walk away.

As one of the men started to approach her with a nightstick
gripped in his fist, his eyes flashed red. What the fuck? Fear rattled her spine
and she shot off a round.

"NO!" The sixth man held up one hand, trying to
stop her as he crumpled in on himself.

Stop
her? What the hell was going on here? Was this
some kind of gang initiation?

"Like hell I will!" She stepped forward and fired
again, hitting the one coming toward her in the shoulder.

He flew backward from the impact and threw his head back as
an ear-splitting shriek broke the air. Was that him? Sam clamped her free hand
over her ear and winced, shying away briefly before glancing back at the sixth
man who now lay motionless on the pavement. She had to help him. Resisting the
ear-splitting screech, Sam forced herself to stand her ground, her gun trained
on the asshole doing a banshee impersonation.

Suddenly, the devil-man's scream stopped and his mouth
snapped shut. He fixed Sam with an icy glare that looked abnormally blue, just
like the rest of him, then the five attackers turned as one and fled,
disappearing so fast Sam actually entertained the thought that she had only
imagined them. Until she looked back and found the dark-haired man still lying
face-up, deathly still. Shoving the Beretta into the waist of her jeans, she
rushed toward him.

* * *

Micah lay on the ground, looking up at the light shining
down like a mockery of the light he had hoped to see as he entered the
afterlife and took his final walk into Heaven, or whatever awaited a vampire
when he died.

Noooo…nooooo!
He was still alive. Someone had saved
him. Why? Why had someone interfered? All he wanted was to die. Just die and be
done with his horrible, wretched life.

The scent of lilacs, subtle and feminine, wafted over him
like angelic perfume as the woman who had saved him against his will knelt
beside him.

"Hey…hey, can you hear me? Can you move? What's your
name? Can you tell me your name?"

Her intoxicating voice soothed him instantly, but Micah
couldn't see her as he blinked against the bright light.

"Who are you?" He groaned, his entire body
protesting his attempt to talk.

"I'm going to save you."

As she bent over him, the overhead light formed a halo
around her head as it shone through her spiky blond hair and shadowed her face.
The smell of lilacs grew even stronger, pleasing Micah's senses.

Whoever she was, she looked, smelled, and sounded like an
angel.

John Apostle glared down at the blue, seeping hole in his
shoulder. His four companions hovered nearby, looking on.

"That bitch fucking shot me," he said, poking a
finger through his sweatshirt. The bluish hue of his skin looked pale against
the darker blue blood that flowed from the wound.

Exchanging glances, the others remained silent for a moment
until one asked, "Do you think the vampire set us up?"

Apostle eye-rolled at the guy, his icy-blues filled with a
lot of don't-be-stupid.

"I was just asking." The other dreck backed away.

Apostle tossed his long, blue-black hair over his shoulder
so he could probe the bullet-hole with his finger. He grimaced then said,
"No, Tormin, that fuck-face wanted to die. If it had been a trap, he would
have had more than some human bitch with a pansy-assed nine-mil waiting for
us."

With a pained grunt, he pulled the slug out of his shoulder
and threw it aside. When was the last time he had been shot? It had been a
while, he knew that. And here he had let some weak, human female shoot him.
Damn her. And he had been in such a good mood up until then. That bitch had
robbed him of the joy of killing a vampire. Well, she would pay for that little
misstep once he got better. "I need to heal, goddamn it, but I want that
bitch. You guys find her, but do not fucking touch her. I want to do her good
personally.
Any of you fuck with me on this, and your ass'll make like a boot cover after I
shove my foot up it. Got me? Find her. Tell me. Don't. Fucking. Touch
her."

The other four drecks nodded cautiously. No one questioned
the boss.

"Okay, everyone change back and get outta here,"
Apostle said.

The five took deep breaths, closing their eyes as the blue
tint faded to Caucasian and their long hair receded to the high-and-tight
man-cuts required in the police force where they all worked. Their faces filled
out, too, no longer taut and hollow. When they opened their eyes, the ice-blue
irises had changed to the human color of their choice. Apostle, aka Officer John,
had opted for brown eyes in his human visage.

"See you tomorrow," Apostle said, giving each of
his men a hard look to ensure they understood his previous order.

As they dispersed, John held his shoulder close to his body,
already channeling healing powers to the injury. Blue blood had turned to red,
but it was all just an optical illusion.

John Apostle was no more human than a zebra could change its
stripes.

* * *

Sam had struggled with the man who was in and out of
consciousness, but had finally gotten him to her car, half-dragging him since
he could barely stand or move his feet. She couldn't take him to the hospital.
They would want her name. And she couldn't give her name to anyone, least of
all someone who would put it into an electronic health record for a John Doe.
It would just be a matter of time before Steve saw it in the system and tracked
her down.

That had left only one other option: Her apartment. Her
tiny, closed-in, can't escape, studio apartment. By the time she reached home,
Mr. Dark and Mysterious had passed out cold and she had to put on her Army hat
to heft him over her shoulder and lug him inside. With a grunt of relief, she
unloaded him onto her bed then stood back and caught her breath as she looked
at him, all wonked out with his gorgeous head of black hair splayed over her
pillow.

Why did I have to get involved?

She grabbed her First Aid kit – which was a little more than
your basic First Aid kit, what with her Army history and all – and took another
look at the man who still lay unconscious.

Mental note: change the sheets and bedspread before
sleeping in the bed again.

He had been horribly beaten, and his face was a mess of cuts
and bruises. Sam frowned. She could have sworn his face had looked worse just
half an hour ago. There had been a contusion around his left eye that now
looked almost healed. And the laceration to his upper lip looked smaller and
more cleanly scabbed.

Shaking off the unusual healing injuries as
adrenaline-induced delusions, Sam pulled out a pair of shears and cut away his
shirt. God, he looked half-starved despite the air of power that surrounded
him. The man's ribs showed plainly through his skin, which was covered with
contusions from where those men had kicked and beaten him.

"What the hell were you doing back there?" She
spoke softly, talking more to herself than him since he was out cold, anyway.
"You should be in worse shape than you are, if you ask me."

Gently palpating his chest and abdomen, Sam felt for broken
bones or evidence of internal damage, shaking her head.

"And why didn't you want me to help you? What? Was this
some kind of gang thing? You look too old to be in a gang." She studied
his face. He looked maybe 29 at the oldest. His shoulder-length, black hair
appeared silky soft, and he had what looked like a few days of growth along the
sharp angle of his jaw and across his chin and upper lip. It was a comely look.
Sam had always been a sucker for a man with facial hair, especially when it was
as manicured as this guy's was.

His face looked angelic now that his eyes were closed.
Earlier, in the parking garage, when his eyes had been open, Sam had seen a
lifetime of pain in their depths, a suffering that ran deeper than the beating
he had just endured. It was a look she had seen in the eyes of some of the
older soldiers she had treated in the Army, and it made her wonder what this
guy had been through to hurt so deeply.

Biting her lip, she resisted the urge to run her fingers
through his hair to see if it was as soft as it looked. But she did trace the
tips of her fingers over his forehead then turned her hand so the backs of her
fingers brushed down his cheek. Something about this mysterious man made her
want to comfort him.

Suddenly she yanked her hand away. "Stop it, Sam. This
isn't time for Florence Nightingale Syndrome." This guy was dangerous.
Hell, why else would five thugs want to beat the crap out of him? He must have
done something terrible to make them retaliate like that.

A nasty scrape on the man's shoulder seeped blood and he had
numerous, angry lashes on both forearms which looked relatively fresh.

She sucked in her breath and frowned. "What the hell
are those from?" There was no way those men in the parking garage had done
that to him. His clothes hadn't been ripped, for starters, and they had been
beating him, not knifing him. She had seen cuttings in the Army, and that's
what this looked like. If she was a betting woman, she would lay down a hundred
that this guy was cutting himself, which meant he was even more fucked up than
she thought.

Sam looked more closely at Mr. Out-Cold's face and sighed.
With a shake of her head, she grabbed an antiseptic wipe from her kit.
"What have you been doing to yourself, Mister?" She ripped open the
wipe's wrapper and the faint smell of alcohol permeated the air. "You're a
troubled one, aren't you? Let's get you fixed up so I can be rid of you. You
kind of freak me out."