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He wouldn’t stay down long. I grabbed the gun from his limp hand and aimed it at his chest.
I was about to pull the trigger when his eyes crept open. “Sabina.”
He lay on the ground, covered in blood and dirt. The goose egg on his forehead was already losing its mass. Knowledge of the inevitable filled his gaze. I paused, watching him.
At one time, I’d looked up to this male, counted him as a friend. And now he’d betrayed everything I held sacred by selling out to the enemy. I hated him for his treachery. I hated the Dominae for choosing me as executioner. But most of all, I hated myself for what I was about to do.
He raised a hand toward me—imploring me to listen. My insides felt coated in acid as I watched him struggle to sit up.
“Don’t trust—”
His final words were lost in the gun’s blast. David’s body exploded into flames, caused by the metaphysical friction of his soul leaving his flesh.
My whole body spasmed. The heat from the fire couldn’t stop the shaking in my limbs. Collapsing to the dirt, I wiped a quivering hand down my face.
The gun felt like a branding iron in my hand. I dropped it, but my hand still throbbed. A moment later, I changed my mind and picked it up again. Pulling out the clip, I removed one of the bullets. Holding one up for inspection, I wondered what David felt when the casing exploded and a dose of the toxic juice robbed him of his immortality.
I glanced over at the smoldering pile that was once my friend. Had he suffered? Or did death bring instant relief from the burdens of immortality? Or had I just damned his soul to a worse fate? I shook myself. His work here was done. Mine wasn’t.
My shirt was caked with smears of soot, dirt, and drying blood—David’s blood mixed with mine. I sucked in a lungful of air, hoping to ease the tightness in my chest.
The fire had died, leaving a charred, smoking mass of ash and bone. Great, I thought, now I have to dig another grave.
I used the shovel to pull myself up. A blur of white flew through the clearing. The owl called out again before flying over the trees. I stilled, wondering if I was hearing things. It called again and this time I was sure it screeched, “Sabina.”
Maybe the smoke and fatigue were playing tricks on me. Maybe it had really said my name. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. I had a body to bury.
As I dug in, my eyes started to sting. I tried to convince myself it was merely a reaction to the smoke, but a voice in my head whispered “guilt.” With ruthless determination, I shoved my conscience down, compressing it into a tiny knot and shoving it into a dark corner of myself. Maybe later I’d pull it out and examine it. Or maybe not.
Good assassins dispose of problems without remorse. Even if the problem was a friend.
2
Sepulcher was my next stop after burying David. Located in Silverlake, near Sunset, it catered to hipster mortal clientele on the front. In the back, however, was one of the best vampire clubs in L.A.
I’d never seen the bouncer before. He had a thick neck and his mullet was not an ironic statement. He wore a black wife beater with the word “asshole” written on it in white. I assumed this was his name.
“Sorry, girlie, no ID, no entry.”
“Look, ” I said, “You’re new so I’ll forgive your ignorance. Ewan knows me.”
Asshole smiled, his crooked teeth yellow from the cigarette dangling from his lips. “You’re the tenth chick tonight who’s claimed to know Ewan. No dice. Next!” He dismissed me, looking at the couple in line behind me. “ID?”
I pushed the guy who stepped forward out of my way.
“Hey!” he said, puffing up like a blowfish.
“Fuck off,” I said without looking at him.
“Now, listen,” I said to the bouncer, who sighed heavily. “I’m going in. You can try to stop me, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
He laughed and flexed a bicep. “Bring it.”
When I moved forward, his hand shot out and grabbed my left arm. With a quick twist toward his thumb, I extricated myself from his hold. Crushing his metatarsals crossed my mind, but I didn’t want to make more of a scene than necessary. I kept walking, only to have him grab me around the waist from behind. He lifted my feet off the ground and hugged me hard to his body.
So much for avoiding a scene.
“You like it rough, huh?” he whispered in my ear. I was about to show him just how rough I liked it when Ewan appeared.
“Put her down, Tank,” he ordered.
“She ain’t got no ID, boss.”
“It’s all right,” Ewan said.
“But, you said—”
“I said, put her down!”
As soon as my feet hit the floor, I spun around, ready to throw down. Before I could swing, Ewan grabbed my hand and pulled me roughly toward him.
“Stop,” he said. “Or I’ll personally kick your ass to the curb.”
Our stare-off lasted only a few moments. Tension hung over us like a cloud, as the rest of the people in line held their collective breath. In the end, though, I knew my anger had nothing to do with the bouncer. Fighting him wouldn’t erase the last two hours of my life. Taking a deep breath, I stood down and settled for glaring over Ewan’s shoulder at the Neanderthal. Ewan placated Tank and sent him back to the door. With a jerk of his head, he indicated I should follow him to the back.
The place was wall-to-wall mortals. Many were crowded on the small dance floor in front of the stage, but the area around the bar was equally packed as people fought for the bartenders’ attention. On the stage, an all-girl punk group thrashed their instruments. They sounded like a bunch of cats in heat. Above the stage, small lights spelled out “Salvation.”
The whole scene felt claustrophobic. The smog of cigarette smoke mixed with the scent of sweat and stale beer, not to mention the overpowering aroma of blood pumping through all those mortal bodies.
As we passed, the women’s bathroom door opened. Two bleached blondes in miniskirts were snorting lines of coke from the counter. Their blood would offer an amazing high were I to feed from them. But I knew better than to go there. First, Ewan would kill me if I sucked on his customers. Second, while the occasional pothead was a harmless snack, making meals out of drug addicts was bad news. Others before me had found the secondhand high too hard to resist, only to find themselves junkies for eternity.
Another bouncer stood about ten feet past the restrooms. This one was smaller than the guy out front, but far deadlier. Sebastian’s auburn hair was shaved on the sides and rose into a Mohawk in the center. He had a bullring in his nose and a dragon half-sleeve tattoo on his left arm.
