Nexus, page 2
A lot of the patrons were vamps and shifters, but there were plenty of other species from the underworld as well. They all looked like normal humans at the moment, thanks to the magic that made them transform once they reached our dimension. Only a few of them felt like they could be a possible threat to me. With luck, I could grab the vamp, drag him out to the back of the building and stake him to death without anyone making a fuss.
Chapter Three
THE ETHEREAL TRAIL of holy water guided me over to the stairs that led to the upper floor. A bouncer was guarding it. He didn’t seem as friendly as the guy on the door. “VIPs only tonight,” he told me when I approached him.
“My bounty is hiding up there,” I said, pointing over his shoulder. “Let me pass so I can claim him.”
“Who are you hunting?” he asked skeptically.
“I didn’t exactly catch his name when I busted him draining a human to death,” I said sarcastically. “I followed him here and I know he’s cowering upstairs, hoping I won’t find him.”
Crossing his arms, he shook his head. “You must be mistaken. A private party is going on up there. Only important guests have been invited.”
“I’m not mistaken,” I denied, starting to get annoyed. “I squirted him with holy water, so he’s wounded.” His eyes flickered, giving him away. “He is here!” I declared in triumph. “Get out of my way, so I can stake that freak through the heart before he murders anyone else.”
A hush went through the crowd as everyone with enhanced hearing turned to face me. Every vampire in the club stared at me in either fear or hatred.
“That was really subtle,” the bouncer said with heavy sarcasm. “You should leave before you get yourself into trouble.”
“You’re harboring a murderer,” I insisted and stepped closer until we were practically nose to nose. He was even bigger than the bouncer on the door, but I wasn’t intimidated by him. “I’m not leaving without my target. Either get out of my way, or I’ll move you myself.”
Derisive laughter broke out from the crowd. The werebear sneered down at me, clearly underestimating me. “Leave the premises immediately, or I’ll make you leave,” he said in a threatening tone.
“It’s going to be like that, is it?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder to see a mob forming. Most of them were hostile. Either they didn’t like bounty hunters, or they didn’t like me personally. I didn’t really give a crap either way.
“It’s going to be like that,” the bouncer confirmed and made the mistake of reaching out to grab me.
I let his fingers close around my wrist, then I grabbed hold of his beard. He had enough time to let out a squawk of indignation, then I spun in a circle. Lifted clear off his feet, he shouted in alarm when I released him. He crashed into the crowd, bowling most of them down.
Snickering beneath my breath at their surprise, I began climbing the stairs. A vampire leaped onto the staircase to block my path. She was short and plump and I sensed she was one of the strongest leeches in the building. “Leave this place,” she said in a commanding tone. She wore the same uniform as the bouncers, which meant she was an employee.
“I will, just as soon as I’ve killed my target,” I said and brushed her aside.
Her astonished expression at being ignored was priceless. “You must do as I say!” she insisted, leaping in front of me again.
“Clearly, I don’t,” I refuted and kept going. She’d tried to compel me with her vampire mojo, but mind control never worked on me. She grabbed my arm and tried to stop me with sheer force. Flicking her off like lint, I sensed a mob of supernatural creatures swarming towards me from behind.
Turning to face them, I kicked a wereboar in the gut when he lunged at me. His breath whooshed out and he knocked half of the group down as he flew backwards. Another leech leaped over the mob and I caught him by the face and tossed him over the railing onto the dancefloor below. A few people screamed when he landed on them.
“What is she?” someone asked in frustration that none of them could stop me.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I muttered, holding my fists up threateningly. “Does anyone else want to try to stop me from doing my job?” I asked.
“Get her out of here!” a man with a raspy voice called out from the bottom of the stairs. He wore a bright yellow shirt with ugly brown patterns on it and brown trousers. He had short messy brown hair, one brown eye and one milky eye. His left ear and a couple of his fingers were missing, but he was otherwise well preserved. I assumed he was Lenny, the zombie in charge of the Den.
“We’re trying!” one of the shifters said.
A fresh group came towards me. I spent a few minutes kicking and punching them away until the wave ebbed. A final vamp landed on my back when I turned to resume my climb. He futilely tried to bite me on the neck, but his fangs couldn’t penetrate my skin. I peeled him off like the scab he was and threw him down the stairs, shaking my head at their pathetic attempts to impede me.
“A crazy woman is on her way upstairs, boss,” I heard Lenny say loudly into his phone. “We can’t stop her. I don’t know what she is, but she’s strong and she can ignore vampires’ commands.”
I couldn’t hear the response, but no one tried to stop me from completing my mission. Once the boss of the bounty hunters heard about the lengths I’d gone to tonight, he was bound to offer me a position on his team.
Anticipation fueled me as I followed the vaporous trail up to the third floor. Bouncers let me pass without a word when I reached the top floor. Their expressions were wary as they stepped aside to let me pass.
“The boss is waiting for you in the first room on the left,” one of the employees said. Another bloodsucker, he eyed me in puzzlement, probably trying to figure out what sort of creature I was.
The trail stopped at the first door on the left of the hallway. I took the can of holy water out of my purse, along with a metal stake. The silver burned my skin slightly, but it wasn’t deadly to me like it was to shifters and vampires. I paused with my hand on the doorknob when I realized I couldn’t sense anything in the room. “A spell must be masking them,” I murmured and hesitated in indecision.
For all I knew, the room beyond the door could be jam packed with the deadliest beings in Nexus. I was strong and tough, but I wasn’t invincible, or so I assumed. I’d never really been hurt before. Mom was almost as strong as I was and she’d bruised me during training a few times by accident. I’d never suffered a broken bone or a serious cut. So far, I hadn’t been shot, so I didn’t know if bullets could penetrate my skin.
It was tempting to call mom and ask for her advice. The glory of becoming the best bounty hunter in the city won out over my momentary concern. Staking a rogue vampire in a club full of supernatural beings would be the perfect way to make a name for myself.
“Here goes nothing,” I said to encourage myself, then I turned the doorhandle.
Chapter Four
BARGING THROUGH THE door brandishing holy water and a metal stake, it took me a second to register the scene. I skidded to a stop on the polished wooden floor and realized I’d just gatecrashed a swanky party of some kind.
The room took up half of the third floor and was large enough to contain hundreds of guests. Classical music was playing from hidden speakers. Uniformed waiters carried trays of champagne around. A table full of delectable finger food sat against one wall. The men all wore tuxedos and the women wore cocktail dresses. From their classy clothes and jewelry, they were the elite of the supernatural world in Nexus. All eyes turned to me with varying degrees of amusement and disdain.
“Is this part of the entertainment, Lord Gilden?” a snobby looking vampire asked. Skeletally thin, her dress was an ugly eggplant color and was short enough to show her bony thighs. Her hair was done in an elegant chignon and she looked like she’d been turned in her late forties or so. I felt like a grubby, badly dressed child standing among these sophisticated people.
The crowd parted and the hottest man I’d ever seen strode towards me. Six-foot four, his wide shoulders filled out his tux impressively. More than merely handsome, he was flawless. His eyes were a deep, burnished gold that would be easy to become lost in. His hair was dark brown, but lightened to golden blond on the top. Short on the sides and back, the top was gelled so it stood straight upwards in the latest trend the humans wore. He had a meticulously trimmed beard that gave him a debonair appearance.
“I’m Drake Gilden,” he said, voice silky smooth and with a hint of amusement in his tone. “You are?”
“Hunting a rogue vamp who murdered a woman in cold blood,” I said. “I followed him here and I’m not leaving until he’s a pile of ashes.” Gasps of outrage sounded from the bloodsuckers in the crowd. “That’s the price leeches pay for killing humans in Nexus,” I reminded them.
“Who appointed you judge, jury and executioner?” someone muttered.
“I’m a bounty hunter. Hunting rogue monsters is my job,” I retorted.
“I know all of the bounty hunters in Nexus,” Lord Gilden said, studying me like I was a puzzle that needed to be solved. “I don’t recall meeting you before.”
“I’m working freelance right now,” I said, craning my head to peer through the crowd. “There he is!” I said in triumph when I spotted a haze of holy water hovering over a man standing with his back to me. “Excuse me for a second. I need to off that bloodsucker before he makes another run for it.”
“You will do no such thing,” Drake Gilden said in a commanding voice.
“It’ll just take a second,” I assured him and stepped around him when he didn’t move.
His eyes widened in shock that his command hadn’t instantly halted me in my tracks. Mutters of alarm sounded as I strode towards my target. He peeked over his shoulder, saw me coming for him and bolted.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I snarled and threw my stake at him. He slammed into someone who didn’t move out of his way fast enough and lost his balance. The stake became lodged in his shoulder rather than spearing through his back and into his heart. He tripped over his own feet and sprawled to the floor.
Shouldering my way through the throng, I planted a boot on the middle of his back as he sluggishly tried to crawl away. I yanked the stake out and he gasped in pain.
“I forbid you from killing my servant!” Lord Gilden thundered as I raised my arm to administer the final blow.
“Sorry, but he’s a rogue and he needs to be put down,” I said with a shrug.
“How can she defy him?” someone murmured as my arm descended.
A big, strong hand caught my arm as the vampire cringed in dread. I looked into Drake’s now furious gold eyes and heaved a sigh. “I can take him into a private room to finish the job if it upsets you this much to see me turn him to ash,” I offered.
“I didn’t kill that human!” the leech moaned. He had a faint accent, so he hadn’t been born here.
“I know you didn’t, Ruen,” the lord said without letting go of my arm. “It’s impossible for him to have committed this crime,” he told me.
“I heard the woman scream and he was hunched over her when I found her body,” I said, yanking my arm free from his tight grip.
“Ruen couldn’t have murdered the human, because he’s not capable of killing anyone,” he insisted.
“Why not?” I asked as he helped his injured lackey to his feet. I knew Drake was a shifter, but I wasn’t sure what kind. I couldn’t feel any power coming from him, so he almost felt like a human. I’d never met anything quite like him before.
“Because I ordered him not to,” he said arrogantly.
“Few beings can refuse Lord Gilden’s commands,” his minion said, grimacing in pain. His face had healed from being sprayed with holy water, but his shoulder was still knitting back together. “How did you manage to resist his power?” he asked.
“What power?” I asked in mystification.
“This power,” Drake replied and dropped a spell he’d been using to conceal what he was.
I took an involuntary step back and automatically moved into a defensive stance. My first impression was of strength. Lord Gilden was the most powerful shifter I’d ever encountered. Most shapeshifters didn’t possess the ability to use magic. All they could do was transform into either a partial, or full animal. There was only one type of shifter who could use magic, but they were supposedly rare and usually lived in Europe.
“You’re a weredragon,” I said, suddenly wary. My monster radar told me this guy was dangerous and way out of my league. He could snuff me out as easily as blowing out a match if he wanted to.
“That I am,” he agreed, then sent out a wave of magic. “Forget this interruption to the party,” he ordered everyone. “Continue with what you were doing before my unexpected guest arrived.”
Everyone except Ruen and I were ensnared by his spell, since it wasn’t directed at us. Conversations started up again as the crowd turned away. The vampire had healed and was glaring at me in distaste. He didn’t have a drop of blood on him from massacring the human. Now that I was standing so close to him, the oddity I’d sensed before returned. I could tell that he was a vampire, but he didn’t show up on my radar as being dangerous. The dragon must have put a spell on him like the one that had cloaked his power from me.
“Let’s take this discussion somewhere private, shall we?” Lord Gilden suggested politely. He didn’t wait for me to answer and strode towards the door. Ruen followed in his wake and I had no choice but to trail after them. No one even seemed to notice us now as we made our way through the crowd. I was used to being stared at rather than being ignored as if I didn’t exist. Stuffing my can of holy water and the stake back into my kill-bag, I felt horribly out of my depth.
The spell the sexy dragon had cast had flowed throughout the building. The bouncers looked surprised to see me when I exited from the party. Drake motioned that I was with him and they relaxed again.
Ruen kept casting glances over his shoulder at me, probably making sure I wasn’t going to try to stake him in the back again. The stake had torn holes in his jacket and shirt. I was subjected to glimpses of his pale, bony shoulder with each step he took.
Drake led us down the stairs to the second floor and entered one of the rooms. Ruen scurried in after him and I paused in the doorway. Instead of a ballroom, it was just a small meeting room. A table and half a dozen chairs stood in the middle of the room. Over to the right was a sideboard with bottles of alcohol and glasses. I stepped inside and closed the door and all of the noise instantly cut off. “This room is soundproofed?” I asked.
“Most of the private rooms are,” Lord Gilden said as he took a seat at the head of the table. “Please, take a seat.” He indicated the chair at the far end of the table from him. His lackey sat to his right.
Lord Gilden hadn’t hidden his power yet. It filled the room, making the air feel charged. While he looked like he was in his early twenties, I had a feeling he was much older than he seemed. Dragons lived for a very long time, or so mom had told me. He could be ancient for all I knew. He had an American accent, but he had a foreign title, which was confusing. The only way I’d get the answers that were piling up was to take a seat as he'd requested.
Casting a glance at the door, I weighed up my options, then decided to take the risk. My night hadn’t gone as planned, but I still had a job to do. I would listen to whatever the shifter had to say, then stake his minion to death when he was done.
Chapter Five
“AS I SAID, I’M DRAKE Gilden,” the mysterious lord repeated as I sank down onto the chair across from him. “May I know your name?”
“I’m Saige Sterling.”
“What are you?” Ruen asked, squinting at me as if he could see beneath my human guise to the monster that lay beneath my skin.
“That’s private,” I replied coolly. “All you need to know is that I’ll hunt down any creature that steps over the line.”
“On who’s authority, Ms. Sterling?” the dragon asked.
“I don’t need a license to be a bounty hunter,” I pointed out. “I just need to witness a monster breaking the law and I’m allowed to off them.” I drew my thumb across my throat for emphasis and looked pointedly at his undead henchman. Ruen hunched his shoulders and shrank down in his chair slightly.
“Perhaps you’d better explain why you were discovered next to a freshly dead body, Ruen,” Lord Gilden said.
His servant looked embarrassed rather than guilty, which was a strange reaction. “I heard a woman scream and went to investigate. She was already dead when I found her.”
“If you didn’t kill her, then who did?” I asked, then continued before he could reply. “I sensed a leech nearby and you were drooling over the corpse when I got there.”
The dragon lifted an eyebrow, inviting Ruen to explain himself. “I was hungry and she was covered in fresh blood,” the vamp said defensively. “I haven’t fed in a couple of days, which made it difficult for me to restrain myself.”
“It would appear the culprit fled from the crime scene moments before you both arrived,” Drake mused, stroking his bearded chin thoughtfully. “How did you track Ruen to this club?”
“I followed the trail of holy water I sprayed on him.”
“How is that even possible?” Ruen asked skeptically. “Holy water doesn’t leave a discernable trail.”
“The trail is discernable to me,” I said smugly. “I can see the mist hovering over your head right now.” It was slowly dissipating and would soon be gone entirely.
“I’ll need to send the body disposal team to get rid of the corpse before someone stumbles across it,” Drake said and took his phone out of his pocket.
