We Own the Night (The Night Songs Collection Book 3) (25 page)

But how could I keep him feeling that way for all of eternity?

Right now, I needed to go for the quick, easy fix. I’d figure out the future later.

“Okay,” I finally managed to say. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“I won’t let you down, beautiful.”

“M
istress, you’ve got this all confused.” Cash smirked at me after I told him about my latest proposal backstage. Dressed head to toe in leather complete with a top hat, he looked like a Victorian biker. “I’m a magician, not a witch.”

“But if Talis could do it, I’m sure you can, too,” I half protested, half pouted. “Aren’t spells magic?”

“Jesus, sulking isn’t going to help you dominate Blade.” Cash shook his head as he reprimanded me. I stood up straighter and adjusted my bottom lip to a more respectable position. “I hadn’t spent any quality time with your predecessor since the nineteenth century, when she committed me to Bethlem Mental Hospital. So I don’t give a rat’s ass about what she could do.”

My mouth dropped, I’d read about the horrors that took place at that asylum but never did I think I’d be standing face to face with someone who had endured the torture that took place there. Frozen in place, I stared at his face. Looking that closely, I could see faint scars trailing into his beard. Slipping into his brain, I could see his memory of other prisoners, naked, filthy, and crazed from starvation, carving into his sun scarred face, examining the vampire’s flesh before putting it into their mouths.

And a pretty nurse who looked a lot like Lennon, soothing him like his screams didn’t pierce her insides. Then she turned and walked out of my vision, leaving him alone, his body crouched in the protection of a slim shadow, bleeding and bubbling with infection.

Any bit of humanity Cash had left, that nurse took with her when she left him. He’d fallen in love with her, the idea that she’d make his life what he wanted it to be. And she betrayed him. I wasn’t sure why Cash let me in so deep, but I considered it a warning.

When I shuddered, Cash simply nodded. “You think you have it tough, Callie.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I think this little lovers’ quarrel of yours is adorable. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Cash brushed past me to the stage. After that image, I needed to keep my space from him. Who knows what else he’d let me see, his mind a gruesome photo album of memories for me to flip through. I looked over at Lennon, who made it her mission to spend every moment she could with Cash now, and watched her face twist in confusion.

“You don’t even want to know,” I said to her, wondering how and why she’d landed in that vision, before I turned to head out and watch the show.

“Don’t even want to know what?” Lennon had no idea we could read into each other’s minds. Or hers.

“About that hospital he mentioned.” I did my best to keep my mind clear. The snowy images he projected to me would drive me mad. “Have you ever heard of it?”

“No. I thought Bethlehem was where Jesus was born.”

I didn’t correct her, in this case ignorance was bliss. I almost screamed when one of the other performers, the one who burst into flames, entered the hallway from a side room. She was still covered in soot and alarmed to see us. At that moment, she could have crawled out of Cash’s memory of the mental hospital.

The girl’s eyes widened when she saw us, and she scurried into another room. I hoped my reaction to her didn’t scare her. But I was glad she’d almost bumped into us; she gave me an idea.

“Have you met that girl yet?” I asked Lennon.

“Holly? Yeah, but she’s real shy.” Lennon spoke in a hushed tone. “She doesn’t talk to many people at all, even the ones in the show. Cash is really protective of her.”

“What is she?” Anyone who could survive combustion every night couldn’t be human. She couldn’t be a vampire either.

Or could she? Blade only liked to burn other people. I didn’t know how he stood up to fire himself.

Lennon shrugged. “Impressive. She’s gorgeous, terrified of people, but other than that, I have no idea.”

My heart sank a bit. Anyone who was afraid of Lennon, who had to be one of the warmest people I’d ever met, wasn’t going to give up the goods to me. This Holly girl might hold the key to me defeating Blade, but to get it, I needed Cash.

This was the first time I’d had a chance to watch Cash’s performance. He worked from the center of the stage, flanked by assistants in old-fashioned Vegas show girl outfits. Huge headdresses, sparkly see-through leotards with only a tiny thong concealing their bodies, and wide glossy red smiles. One of the girls climbed into a coffin, waving a flirty goodbye to the audience before Cash closed the lid. A round saw dropped from the ceiling, splicing the coffin in two. Blood splattered from the saw as it sliced its way through the wood, landing in huge obscene drops on the front row. The other assistant dropped to her knees in front of Cash, begging him to do something.

“Should I bring Betty back to life?” He asked the audience. They roared and screamed, not sure what they’d just seen.

“We need a sacrifice. Do we have any volunteers?” He called out, scanning the crowd with eager anticipation. The audience fell silent as they all looked at each other, trying to decide who no longer deserved to live so Betty could come back to us. Fear and doubt swirled above them. I wondered if this is what a witch hunt felt like.

“Take her!” A man’s voice called out from the audience. Everyone craned their necks to see where the voice came from. The spotlight followed, landing on a youngish man with a goatee. He held on to girl next to him roughly. She cried out in objection and struggled to break free from him.

“Take her! Take her! Take her!” The audience began to chant. Cash’s handlers, thugs that looked much like Tony’s entourage, marched over to the couple. The girl flailed, desperate to escape, but the people sitting around her held her in place. The men reached her, dragging her down to the center of the stage, each with one of their hands hooked under her arms. Tears streaked her face, and her words had dissolved into high pitched screaming.

I moved closer to Lennon, wishing I could use her as a blanket. “Please tell me this is staged,” I whispered.

“Some of it.” Her eyes widened, but she didn’t take them off of the stage. Fear radiated from her skin. My stomach knotted with Lennon’s revulsion.

The men still hung on to the girl as she struggled on the stage. The other showgirl approached her, stroking her hair and shushing her. The showgirl looked back at Cash with exaggerated sympathy, but Cash just shook his head. Something about the scene was eerily similar to when he’d let me dip into his memory backstage. No relief from the horror.

“I think this offering will please the gods.” Cash spoke to the audience, but his eyes were on that scared girl, on her knees in a puddle of someone else’s blood in the center of the stage, surrounded by broken wood and splinters. He approached her gently, putting his mouth close to her ear. After a couple of deep sobbing breaths, she nodded at whatever he told her, and stood up. The men let go of her, and instead of running from danger, she went right to it, taking a step towards Cash. His hands came down on her shoulders, kneading them like a massage. Her body relaxed and I wanted to scream at her to run away.

More murmuring, more whispering, and then the girl stood still and calm while Cash pulled her top over her head, dropping it in the blood. He brought his fingers to her neck, caressing it as the crowd went wild.

“Take her! Take her! Take her!” The nameless remaining showgirl raised her hands, encouraging the volume. I looked from her, to Cash, to the waiting victim, who looked calm and serene. Almost like she was in a trance.

Cash grinned wide, showing everyone in the arena his fangs. The crowd noise level rocketed. He held on to the girl firmly by the shoulders and then sunk his teeth into her neck.

My eardrums felt like they might explode from the volume.

He drank from her until her body weakened, her knees buckling. He followed her to the floor, still drinking. When he took his teeth away from her body, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand then licked the blood from his own skin. The men who’d brought her to the stage reappeared, picking her up to remove her, as Betty slid down the trapeze silks that had fallen unnoticed from the ceiling during Cash’s spectacle.

Lennon and I pressed against the wall when the men brought Cash’s victim by us. I concentrated on the girl’s body, feeling her heart beat slow and her skin chill.

She was going to die.

I ran down the hall to catch up with the entourage. “This is a restricted area, Miss.” One of the men reprimanded me, sounding like a recording.

“I have a pass.” I felt ridiculous saying it, like I was some sort of groupie. I should have told him who was. “That girl is going to die.”

“Yes, she is.” No emotion.

“Get out of my way!” I pushed at the one who held her feet. Caught off guard by my strength, he dropped her and hit the wall. I reached down to put my arms around the girl’s waist so I could free her from the man who held her arms. The other guy tried to fight me, but I kicked him away like an empty can. All I had to do was pull the girl’s body to mine, but I didn’t want to hurt her. Any more trauma and no one would be able to save her.

I cradled her head in my palm. It rolled back and forth, her muscles giving up control. Resting her body against the wall, I braced myself to rip into my own skin for the first time.

“What are you doing?” Lennon ran down the hall, horrified to find me biting my own flesh.

“Callie, no!” Cash bellowed from behind her.

“She’s going to die!” I repeated, this time panicked, realizing I was the only one who cared.

Cash’s hands landed on my shoulders, and he slid my body along the linoleum floor away from the girl. He pulled my wrist away from my mouth, I’d stopped sucking the blood and it was now just dripping down my chin. Pulling me to my feet, Cash licked the blood from my skin, then kissed my cheek.

“The last thing we need is another female vampire in this town. And that’s what you almost created. You don’t need anyone else to take care of. You have your hands full already.”

“But,” I looked down at the girl, her skin turning gray. I had no time to be mad at him for trying to belittle me. It wouldn’t save her. “You almost killed that girl. For no reason.”

“The crowd loved it.” Cash tipped up my chin when he realized I didn’t think his joke was funny at all. “She was a prostitute. If I didn’t get to her, your ex would have finished her soon enough.”

What Blade did to those hookers wasn’t that much different than what Tristan did with his groupies. Or if he was to be believed, used to do. Apparently Cash got his fix with an audience. “Why do all of you guys need the blood so much?”

“It’s the only way we’re superior to females,” Cash said. “We can’t best our female vampires, but female humans are all too willing. Especially the whores.” He glanced away from me, to Lennon.

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s survival.” Cash shrugged. “You need to stop thinking in human terms.”

“It’s all I know!” I slammed my palms against his chest, separating myself from his body. He stumbled back against the wall, and I dropped back to my knees to be near the girl again.

The wound on my wrist already began to heal, a thin layer of skin keeping me whole. A quick swipe with my fingernail was enough to open it back up. Now the girl was too weak to respond, so with my other hand, I separated her lips enough to let the blood drip into her mouth. When the first drop hit her tongue, her body flinched.

“You can’t do that!” Cash roared. “You can’t even take care of yourself.”

“I don’t want to create another vampire.” I rolled my eyes, looking back at him while I bled into the girl’s mouth. “Just enough so she doesn’t die.”

“She doesn’t deserve to live.”

“I’m sorry that you seem to have something against prostitutes. I don’t know what Talis did to you, but that was over a hundred years ago. Get over it.”

“We can’t trust the whore to keep her mouth shut,” one of the guards said, adding ammunition to Cash’s cause.

“What did she do to you?” I roared, looking back and forth from the two guards to Cash. Lennon looked so small in the background, but her fear threatened to choke me.

No one said anything. Screw them, they deserved whatever they got. I turned back to the girl, who had regained enough strength to suck, now drinking from me properly. I cooed, making encouraging noises like a mother might to a baby. Cash was right, the last thing I needed on my hands was a new vampire, especially another female. I had to pay attention. Once her color returned to normal, I pulled my wrist away from her, sucking on it myself to make the wound close more quickly. After a few moments, the girl must have realized what happened to her, and she scrambled away from me like a crab.