The Shopgirl's Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book 1) (32 page)

“Blessed is my power. I call upon thee.” Roz spoke in a terrified whisper.

Connor didn’t check to see if her power was working or not. By the sound of her voice, she was still a witch on the fritz.

Olek folded his arms across his wide chest, as casual as could be, while Connor’s pulse thundered against his ribs. “Save Anya,” he said to his minions. “Kill the other two.”

The whole world jerked into motion.

Big Red came at him like a freight train. Connor fired six rounds as fast as his finger could move. As the vampire slammed him into the dirt, he heard Ali firing her 9 millimeters. Once, twice, three times before she squealed in pain or fright, he couldn’t tell which, and stopped shooting.

Righteous fury swept through him like a kind of supernatural power all its own. He was wrath. He was vengeance. He was a fairy tale monster come to life. And these fuckers were not leaving this spot alive.

Big Red drove his forehead into Connor’s nose. Pain and blood blinded him. And then it was more than pain. Red stabbed him in the belly, angling the knife up toward his heart.

Roaring, Connor bucked and knocked Red to the side. He took the handle of the knife and slid it from his own abdomen. He flipped the blade and attacked, sticking and moving, faster and then faster, stabbing the vampire so hard, his fingers followed the blade through his abdominal cavity, banging into ribs. Red dropped to a knee, and Connor cut his throat.

But it wasn’t enough. He kept sawing, furiously, before Red rallied. He had trouble with the vertebrae, but in moments, Connor held a knife in one hand and a severed head in the other.

Heal that, motherfucker.

Connor stood, taking in the state of things with a sweep of his gaze. Roz knelt in the grass, calling her power over and over and over. Useless. Nobody paid any attention to her. Olek was rooted to the same spot, arms folded, smirking as if oddly pleased with Big Red’s death. And Ali. Oh, God. She laid on her back, frozen, the female vampire standing over her. She preferred blades, too, but hers was a machete. And she carved designs with it into Ali’s chest. Blood covered her like a blanket. Saving Ali didn’t include keeping her safe, apparently.

Connor fired the remaining rounds from his .45 until he heard a gut-clenching
click
. He flipped the blade, so slippery, and threw it overhand at the bitch. She ducked it, and it sailed off into the night. She smiled and rushed him, slashing like Zorro with a long, curved blade. Fool that he was, he’d thrown away his last weapon.

She cut him on the left forearm, and then the right side of his jaw, before swinging again. Connor stepped back, but she was quicker, and the blade burrowed into his chest, catching in his ribs. With a sinister smile, she levered them open and his whole body vibrated like he’d been electrocuted. With one well-aimed slice, she’d have his heart and lungs in the palm of her hand. He had to be stronger than her, there was no other option.

He grabbed the blade with both hands and yanked. She pushed back, and the machete cut through the soft tissue of his fingers, grinding against bone. He twisted and took the machete from her, forcing her off balance for a fraction of a second. He swung for the fences. Her head joined her friend’s on the ground.

Ali lay on her back, whimpering. And Connor forgot about Oleksander, combat, or anything except her. Ali was hurt, and his insides churned.

“Shh,” he whispered. “Hush, you’re safe.” The vamp had made a mess of Ali’s chest. Blood ran in rivulets along the sides of her neck and down her belly. He found the deepest cut and pressed both of his mangled hands to it, trying to stop the bleeding. She flinched, and it took that long for him to realize what he’d done.

Her eyes widened. “Your blood.”

No. His tainted blood was mixing with hers.

“Enough,” came a growl from behind him. Before Connor could raise an arm to defend her, Olek had him by the neck. He lifted him off his feet and held him one-armed, like a garden tool, at eye level. And he wasn’t gentle about it. Olek’s fingers tightened, squeezing the blood and oxygen from Connor’s brain.
Snap, crackle, pop
.

Connor reached out with his good right arm for Olek’s eyes, but the vampire took his forearm and snapped it in two, and then with a flick of his wrist, dislocated his shoulder. Connor’s arm fell like a dead weight to his side.

Ali struggled to her knees, God bless her, and fired three rounds at the Destroyer. Later, he’d insist on target practice because at least one hit Connor in the belly by mistake.

“Soon, you’ll come to me, you’ll see my kingdom, and you’ll swear loyalty to me,” Olek said to him, unfazed by the bullets flying. “But not yet. Today is Anya’s day.” He pivoted and tossed Connor through the air.

He saw dark sky, Roz, and Ali before hitting the cab of his truck, metal buckling from the force. And because his body was no longer his to control, he dropped to his knees, hovered there for a moment, and then fell face first into the dirt.

#

Ali scrambled toward Connor, but Olek picked her up like a child and trotted off down the road.

“Connor!” she screamed, fighting as hard as she could, which wasn’t nearly hard enough. Not even close. “
Please
, Connor!”

Olek walked with purpose. With every step he took, Connor grew farther away, and he needed her. God, he was broken and bleeding. Roz finally got off her goddamned knees and went to him, but he needed
her
.

“Connor!”

Olek set Ali on her feet near the passenger side of his little car. She didn’t even see his arm move before there was a smack, and she fell to her knees, bleeding from the mouth.

“Control yourself,” Olek snapped.

Ali’s body pulled in a thousand different directions, and she ached with the pressure. Control? She’d spent her whole life practicing it. But all that ended here. Now. Olek was the force separating her from Connor. She would get around him, over him, through him, whatever it took.

“You don’t get to hurt him.” She stood. “He belongs to me.” Her skin flushed pink. “You won’t take what’s mine.”

The brighter she glowed the wider Oleksander’s amused grin grew. Her insides crackled with pain and rage. She could feel the building heat, the achy sensation in her stomach.

She’d spent twenty-two years confining her curse. Forcing it out felt wild and unstable. It sizzled through her like electricity, like acid, like untapped, fiery power. She unlatched the dark place inside her, and light bubbled forth, flowing into her fingers and toes. Her color deepened.

“I say what happens to me,” Ali declared. “And I say, we win.”

She let her cursed light loose for the first time in her life. It roared through her, surging into her cells. She glowed hot pink, a woman-shaped neon sign.

Olek stepped back, not out of fear, but to get a better look. She closed the distance, wanting every particle of her power to hit him. Whatever was building in her belly, she wanted him to take it all. If she transformed, if she burst into flames, if she called magic like a witch—he was going to eat every last bite.

Olek creeped forward with one arm outstretched as if to grab her. Ali closed her eyes and pushed her light past any semblance of control, further than she’d ever pushed it before. It burned. She cried out.

Her vision blurred, and then her ears buzzed so loudly she couldn’t hear what the vampire said that made him laugh. As if he wasn’t scared at all, as if he was fascinated. Well, the joke was on him. She closed her eyes and gave the lightning inside her the tiniest of nudges, and she didn’t light on fire, or morph into an animal, or call any magic.

Like a dying star, Ali exploded.

#

Connor heard a sonic boom, and air ruffled his clothes. At least the clothes not stuck to him with blood. He opened his eyes.

“Roz?” He’d planned on a bellow, but it came out more like a cough.

She appeared at his side, still sniffling. There was no trace of magical power around her at all. The weird electrical pulse of energy hadn’t come from her.

“He took Ali,” she whispered.

Unacceptable. He grabbed her with his good hand. “Call your power.”

“I can’t,” she cried. “It’s the stress. It won’t come.”

He yanked on the collar of her shirt. “
Do this for me
.” He must have communicated his need to her, because her eyes widened and she wiped sweat from her upper lip.

“Blessed is my power. I call upon thee.” Nothing. Not a shiver. She stood and spread her hands at her sides. “Blessed is my power. I call upon thee.
Please
. Blessed is my power. I call upon thee.” It burst forth, circling her and dancing like dust in the wind.

Finally.

“Now get me on my feet.” Connor had to find Ali. He had to save her.

Roz’s magic buzzed in his ears and tingled its way down his spine. He pushed himself up onto two very unsteady legs, but he did it, and hobbled toward Olek’s beater car. Roz stayed two steps behind, speaking healing and strength spells at breakneck speed. The crackle and whirl of her magic, though, didn’t soothe him at all. Something was wrong. Something bad had happened.

Part of the vampires’ car had vanished, and a crater lay beside it. Connor stumbled over his feet, righted himself, and then ran on borrowed power.

Ali lay in the center of the depression, naked. A semi-circle of car had disintegrated, giving an inside glimpse of the engine block and half a tire. Olek was gone. Vanished. It was like a six-foot-wide sphere of energy had vaporized everything inside it. Metal. Flesh. Cloth. Rubber. Everything except Ali.

Her heart was beating, and her breath was a shallow in and out. He slipped out of his shirt, despite the pain, and dressed her. The shirt, thick with blood and too big, concealed her nudity though. He lifted her up into his arms and fought a wave of dizziness, but Roz’s voice grew in volume and the wooziness faded.

Connor carried her, one-armed against his chest, to the truck. “Roz, drive to the clinic in Henderson—fast. She needs a doctor.”

Roz didn’t pause in her spells, but she gave him a look. The last time they’d gone to the clinic for help that crazy assistant had shot him.

He didn’t know if he could handle another gunshot wound alongside a broken arm and a generally bruised and beaten body.

“I know. But she can
un
-hate us. Ali needs help.”

She’d lost several degrees of body heat back there, but her heart kept beating, and her chest rose and fell. Connor held her to warm her and hoped that whatever had come out of her hadn’t destroyed her too.

He’d pressed his bleeding hand to her wounds. He’d infected her. Goddamn it. Tears burned his eyes and rolled down both cheeks. He’d messed up. Big time. He’d mixed his filthy, plague-ridden blood with hers.

Roz kept up a steady stream of spells the whole way into town, never stalling for a second. When she pulled into the parking lot, he said, “Honk, and warn them we’re coming.” He hopped down and carried Ali through the front door, Roz right behind, hissing spells through her teeth.

Connor stalked past the half dozen people in the waiting area toward the exam rooms down a hall. The first bed was occupied by a frail, elderly lady. Connor laid Ali upon the second bed.

“I told you to stay away.” The doctor followed him in, waving her hands, completely agitated.

“No one’s going to hurt you. She’s human, and she needs help.”

“I called the police.” Dr. Burke folded her arms tight across her chest and stood to her full height, only a couple inches shorter than him. “My assistant quit because of you, you know.”

“Please.”

“I’m in this country to help people, not monsters.”

“We were the ones fighting the monsters,” Connor snapped. “That’s how she got hurt.”

The doc exhaled, deflating a little, her training taking over. “What happened?” She pressed her fingers to Ali’s wrist as if she couldn’t help herself.

“I’m not even sure.” He touched his forehead, caught in a new wave of dizziness. “Something, uh, exploded.” Why didn’t this room have a chair to sit in? “I need to rest a tick.”

The doc did a cursory examination. “Was she beaten? Raped? Drowned? A little background would be helpful.”

“She, uh…” The room spun crazily, and he grabbed the sink to steady himself. His grip on the counter tightened and the screws came loose from the wall; glue and sealant split; it jumped two inches. “I…infected…”

“She glowed,” Roz said, ceasing speaking the spells that had been keeping Connor upright to pass along information. “And then she popped.”

Connor groaned. All the borrowed power fueling him dropped away, and he blacked out.

#

Maks was floating. A not unpleasant sensation after the agony of his recent ass kicking. He opened his eyes, though only one worked properly.

No, not floating. Someone was dragging him across uneven ground. He tried to focus. Red hair. Angelic blue eyes. His little bird.

“Katya,” he breathed. “He’s going to kill me.” She should know what they were up against. She’d obviously sprung him from his cell, but the Destroyer would never,
never
, let them disappear.

“No, he’s not.”

She wasn’t his little bird. She wasn’t Katya. Maks blinked and red hair became matted brown. Blue eyes became amber. Not the love of his life, but one of his donors. Nice term for enslaved, walking blood bag.

He had the urge to argue, but nothing seemed very important, not even his life, such as it was. If he’d been in control of any of his muscles, he’d have tried to stand to make it easier on her, but there was nothing. He closed his eyes, floated some more, and when he opened them again his donor—he couldn’t remember her name—rolled him into the corner at the back of his room. She was hiding him, bless her. For what purpose, he didn’t understand and didn’t care.

She covered him with a coat that smelled of earth and rotting things, a strangely comforting scent. If he’d remained human, he might have been laid out in a snug grave somewhere. After twenty-five years of living like a monster, he belonged in the ground.