Racing the Dawn, page 1
Racing the Dawn
Synopsis
Jade Murphy is bored. A century and a half of hopping from night job to night job will do that to a vampire. After narrowly escaping a house fire, she’s unexpectedly intrigued by gorgeous firefighter Beth Jenssen, and her undead existence might just be perking up a bit.
When her neighbor’s illegal side business triggers Jade’s serious anger management issues, things start to get complicated. Running around the streets of Boston trying to extricate herself from the mess she’s made, while keeping Beth’s attention on anything other than her vampire foibles, isn’t exactly a recipe for romance.
Undead existence still too boring, Jade?
Racing the Dawn
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Racing the Dawn
© 2022 BY Sandra Barret. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63679-271-2
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.o. Box 249
Valley Falls, Ny 12185
First Edition: June 2022
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: Bold Strokes Graphics
Cover Design By Inkspiral Design
eBook Design by Toni Whitaker
Acknowledgments
Jade Murphy started out a long time ago as a LiveJournal experiment. She’s changed so much since those early days that were just a seed for what has now grown into this first book. Unfortunately, I can’t go back in time and thank all those who read her thoughts “back in the day.” but I hope you find your way to this book and series. I think you’ll be pleased she kept her sarcasm and sporadic episodes of righteous rage intact!
Thank you to my editor, Shelley Thrasher, who taught me the benefits of hyphens and commas, and so many other lessons that brought this story to life. Special thanks to Sandy Lowe and all the fine folks at Bold Strokes Books who welcomed me and helped me through the learning stage of a new publisher. Thanks to Matt Bright at Inkspiral Design for the fantastic cover art.
As always, thanks to my wife who puts up with my harebrained ideas and helps me morph them into something people might actually want to read.
Dedication
For my mom, the guiding light and matriarch of our little clan.
Chapter One
Some people hate warehouse work. Me? I love it. I get to wear earbuds, play music on my phone, and ignore my coworkers for nine hours straight. Best job I’ve had in the past century. It’s not easy getting and holding a job as a century-and-a-half-year-old vampire. I mean the world is more accepting than it was when I was turned, but blood-sucking immortals just haven’t managed their own diversity and inclusion efforts yet. Add to that, anxiety issues and multiple failed efforts at anger management, and I’m just happy to have a steady paycheck to keep a roof over my head and blood bags from the black market in my fridge. The earbuds mean nobody is butting into my personal business. I can stay in my little bloodsucker closet and pass for human. Mostly.
This warehouse is fully automated, with trackers on everything we do. Fine by me, so long as I remember to keep my pace down to human-slow. I had a bit of explaining to do the first week, when I doubled the output of the prior top performer. (Hey, Silas, you’re still here and still a jackass.) So now I make sure I stay behind Silas and Maria, the other overachiever, just for good measure.
I got the shift-end buzz on my phone (yep, they even have an app for that), cleaned up my area, and headed for the door. Didi, my manager, waved me over on my way out. She loves me, and what’s not to love? I get my job done, and I don’t cause problems. I’ll take any shift, any day or night.
Yes, days, too. Vampires don’t burn up in the sun. We do get serious sun sickness, though, and prefer staying indoors in the daytime, with artificial lighting whenever possible.
Didi was a short, round Latina with way too much energy for a human. She pulled down the regulation mask they still made us all wear since the pandemic. Funny how the corporation fought against stocking enough masks and disposable gloves when the humans really needed them, but stocked up like the world was going to end as soon as they managed to buy a supplier and turn it into a company product they could sell. Even that wasn’t enough to get our own supplies until their automated human-resources software realized there were a lot less callouts for sick staff while we were all gloved and masked up. No to masks to keep the humans alive, but yes to masks that keep them on the warehouse floors longer.
“Jade,” Didi said. “Can you take tomorrow’s evening shift? I know you were scheduled for a day off, but…”
“Yep,” I said to save her from extra explanations and extra conversations I didn’t want to have. Extra money helped, always helped.
“Thanks. You’re a doll. I hope it doesn’t ruin your weekend plans?”
Yeah, that subject bordered on the uncomfortable, so I mumbled a good-bye, stuffed my earbuds back in, and headed out the door a bit too fast for human-normal. If I didn’t leave, Didi would extend the conversation, and I’m not the conversational type. Some people are the run-away-before-it-gets-awkward type, but I’m the run-away-and-make-it-awkward type.
I tossed my disposable gloves on the way out, then pulled off my cloth mask and stuffed it into my pocket. The night air hit me with the damp memory of a recent rainfall, just enough to emphasize the general stench of old oil and diesel that lingered from all the delivery trucks in this warehouse and the surrounding buildings, including the post-office sorting hub that shared the lot with us.
A handful of other shift members left the same time as I did, but those earbuds were my lifesaver, and I didn’t even have to pretend to have a conversation. As you might have guessed, I avoid talking to people, most all people. It’s just easier that way.
I walked down the dark streets of Chelsea, shedding that lingering awkward feeling by the time I crossed the bridge into East Boston, the neighborhood where I currently lived. It was six o’clock in the morning, and the birds were already heralding the coming dawn. I could walk the whole way home and feel the start of sun sickness, or I could race the dawn. With a look around to be sure nobody could see me, I jumped onto the nearest fire escape, scrambled to the roof, and ran at vampire speed across the rooftops of the triple-deckers that were the lifeblood of the city of Boston. The damp air hit me as I raced, and I couldn’t help but grin as the well-lit streets sped by below me. It was my favorite pastime, at least until the rich-people, ten-story-condo craze took over everything in sight and priced me and every other working stiff out of the city. I hooked up with the rail trail ten minutes later and dropped back down to street level. At this hour, I’d have it to myself.
* * *
I slowed down around Shays Beach, not because I was tired or anyone was in the vicinity, but because I smelled smoke and could hear the rumbling of fire engines in the distance.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” In my one-and-a-half centuries, I’d witnessed plenty of fires, and two mobs had burned me out of my home. The first burning came after I was turned and had been too sloppy in covering my tracks. Back in 1872, vampires weren’t heroes or villains in books and movies. People knew we were real. It wasn’t until after World War II that superstitions faded into the background as everyone embraced the modern world. Silly humans.
In 1919 during the Chicago race riots, a few hundred other Blacks and I were burnt out of our homes. Jackass humans.
I stopped in the middle of the sandy beach, with the gibbous moon riding low across Logan Airport to my right. The chance that someone found out I was a vampire and attempted to torch me out was minimal. Similarly unlikely, someone took offense to my skin color and cherry-bombed my apartment, but the thought didn’t slow my racing pulse, sweaty palms, and the dreaded sense of impending doom. I squatted down in the damp sand and clutched the Connemara-marble stone I kept in my pocket for good luck. It and my hazel eyes were the two things I’d gotten from my Irish immigrant mother.
“I’m safe. I’m not in danger.” My therapist, Simone, taught me the litany to help calm the anxiety. Yes, vampires see therapists, but not doctors. That leads to tests and questions and people having to die because they know too much.
I whispered the litany for a few heartbeats, but when I heard the screaming siren of another fire truck, I had to find out. I looked at the weather app on my phone. Fifteen minutes until dawn. Ten deep breaths (another therapy trick), and I raced to the end of the beach and up to the top of the nearest set of triple-deckers. Run, run, leap across the street, run run, leap. As I neared the scene, I could tell it wasn’t the triple-decker I lived in. It was two blocks away.
Calmness of mind doesn’t equate instantly to calmness of body, but I was okay enough to slow down and stay out of sight on the rooftop on the corner and out of the fire-truck lights to see what the fuss was all about. Two trucks took up the entire street, with a third on the next street over, a hose covering the back of the house. I recognized the house as the abandoned place that had suffered two fires in the past three years. You’d think someone would just tear it down already.
Flames leaped up from the third-story windows, and I was in time to see part of the roof collapse in on it. I didn’t necessarily like humans, but I didn’t dislike them either so was happy enough to leave the scene, knowing nobody was in real danger in the abandoned house. Before I could turn away, though, my ears perked up to the sound of an angry cat. I looked down at street level and saw a firefighter wrestling said angry cat in a blanket. My nickel was on the cat winning, and I knew why.
“You left the kittens behind,” I said to no one. Humans couldn’t hear the kittens’ cries, but I could. Abandoned houses made great homes for the feral cats and other critters of the neighborhood.
“Shit fuck.” No, I’m not a cat person, but I’m also not a just-sit-around-and-let-a-litter-of-kittens-fry person either. Before I could talk myself out of it, I dropped from the roof and raced to the back of the building.
Vamp speed is fast, faster than humans can see. Even surveillance cameras can’t detect us, because who builds a camera sensitive enough to detect something crossing its line of sight at superhuman speeds, right?
Vamps also don’t burn easily, for all that I’m terrified of being discovered and burned out of my home, again. Unfortunately, human clothing does burn, so I did a quick run through the fire hose. Damn, that was a strong stream of water. It slammed me into the back wall of the house. Still, drenched was better than dry.
I dove through a shattered first-floor window and hunted down the mewing kittens to the front room. The smoke was intense, but I can hold my breath for a long, long time. Momma cat was smart. She had her litter in an old box sitting on the floor. I picked up the box with the batch of six gray kittens as the flames from the second story broke through and collapsed the ceiling over my backyard exit plan. Did I mention shit fuck?
The flames caught on the threadbare drapes edging the front window leading to the street and the fire trucks, but the window itself was intact and not burning. Time to do something stupid, Jade. This was going to sting.
I held the box of kittens tight to my chest as the flames surrounded us. I took a leap at the window and twisted my body at the last second so the shattering glass sprayed out from my back and away from the kittens. I landed with a duck and roll and was up on my feet before the first firefighter saw me there. Yeah, that hurt a bit. Vampires aren’t as sensitive to pain as humans, but a back full of glass shards, well, that just plain stung.
I saw the original firefighter with the battling momma cat off to the left, marched over there, and dropped the box down at their feet. Their, because their jacket was off, and they had their name stitched on the blue firefighter T-shirt—Beth Jenssen (they/them/theirs). They had one hand holding a mask to their face to suck in oxygen, and the other hand was holding the cat in the blanket on the curbstone. The cat shot out of their hands the instant I put the box down.
“You left the kittens,” I said.
The firefighter dropped their oxygen mask and stood up. They were tall, a good six inches taller than I was, broad at the shoulders, and had their long, blond hair in a tight bun.
They stared at me. “The building was empty. I was sure of it.”
Their confusion didn’t last long before they kicked into action, threw the former cat blanket over my arms, and started patting me down. That was not in my comfort zone. I pulled away. “You left the kittens,” I repeated. It was the obvious important point to make.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t find you in the house,” they said, with a worried frown. They put a hand on my shoulder. “You need those burns taken care of.”
I looked down and realized the long-sleeve shirt I was wearing was a goner. The sleeves were burnt up past the elbow, and even my jeans were smoldering in spots. Great, Jade. How are you going to explain your way out of this one?
“Come with me, please,” they said in the kind of calm voice people use when they think you’re about to bolt. Of course, I was about to bolt. They looked to their left, and an EMT rushed over to meet us.
“I’m okay,” I said, not that anyone was listening. The firefighter eased me down onto a gurney, and the EMT pulled up my sleeves with more care than was really needed. He looked confused at my brown skin with barely a hint of red, more like a sunburn than the crispy burnt flesh it should have been if I were human.
“I went swimming,” I said. Yeah. I’m a fast thinker all right.
They both looked at me with matching frowns. “I just came from Shays Beach. I went swimming. So I was all wet before I went into the building. See,” I said, showing my bared brown arms. “No bad burns.”
The firefighter just blinked at me from, I have to say, deliciously green eyes, eyes I could get lost in if I didn’t watch myself.
The EMT broke in on the moment as he studied my back. “You have glass shards embedded in your back. Please stay still while I get something to pull them out.”
Well, shit. That explained the stinging. “What time is it?” I asked the firefighter who’d come to sit next to me on the gurney. They smelled of smoke, sweat, and something light, like baby powder. Do adult humans use baby powder, or was that part of the firefighter’s general I’m-here-to-keep-you-safe tool kit?
“It’s dawn,” they said. “See. The sky’s already light. The sun will be up any minute.”
Great, dawn. I’d have more than a few glass shards to deal with if I didn’t get indoors soon. The EMT cut away at the back of my ruined shirt and started pulling out glass bits. I remembered to wince now and then to pretend it hurt more than it really did. It’s not that vampires have a high threshold for pain or anything stoic like that. We’re harder to damage than tender humans.
I glanced back at the firefighter, who’d taken hold of my hand. Again with the physical closeness, but I didn’t want to pull away quite yet. Their hand was larger than mine, and I could feel the calluses across their warm palm. “I don’t want the cat and kittens to go to a kill shelter,” I said.
“I’m Beth Jenssen, Engine 56, Orient Heights Station,” they said with a broad smile. That was a better conversation starter than what I blurted out. Beth pulled their hair out of the bun and let it cascade down their shoulders. They took my hand in theirs, again. “What’s your name?”
I didn’t think it was a relevant question but answered, “Jade Murphy. I live nearby.” I figured that explained my interest enough.
“You were courageous to go into that house to save the kittens,” they said, “but you could have gotten seriously hurt. Can you please leave the burning buildings to the experts next time?” Beth’s words sounded casual, but the steel in their voice conveyed both their worry and their warning. I was okay with leaving the heroics to the heroes, especially with the sky brightening by the second. I needed some way to escape and get inside.
“You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you?” Beth said.
I admit, I froze. How did they know I’d been in and around Boston for more than a century? Back to the racing heart rate as my anxiety over being caught flooded my system. “Not that long.”
Beth smiled. “Only the locals here in East Boston call it Shays Beach. To us newcomers, it’s Constitution Beach.”
Crisis averted? I took a few steadying breaths to help the excess adrenaline dissipate. I’m safe. I’m not in pain, I’m not in danger. I’m okay.
Okay, maybe in a little pain. Some of those glass shards the EMT was yanking out of my back must have gone in deep. Over time, vampire healing would have pushed them out anyway. Feeling the yank of each one wasn’t my idea of a fun time.
“I will be right back,” Beth said as they let go of my hand and walked over to the fire truck with the words Engine 56 written across the side in big letters. I did a few winces while they were gone since I’d forgotten to do them while they were holding my hand. Distracted by their physical presence or feeling the need to prove I was brave? Let’s go with brave.
