Page 16 of Property of Scar

That Evening

The accountant’s office is tucked above a dry-cleaning business on Fourth Street, hidden behind a door that looks like a supply closet and smells like one too. Fluorescent lighting and a secondhand desk that are stacked with ledgers—beautiful in their dishonesty.

Daniel, our accountant, is small, twitchy, and permanently smells like ink and stress. He’s the kind of guy who triple checks numbers because he knows screwing up around this club can get real painful, real fast.

And lately, with Roxy digging through the books alongside him, we already know something is dirty in the accounts.

He’s talking about the bar.

I know that because his mouth keeps moving while the laser pointer shakes across a spreadsheet tied to The Anchor & Anarchy, our totally legal little riverside pub that sells overpriced beer, greasy food, and cleans dirty money smoother than half the shell companies in the city.

Then, my phone rings.

Ruckus’ name appears on the screen, and Ruckus doesn’t call unless something is bleeding.

I’m already standing when I answer it, “Talk.”

“The Anchor & Anarchy.” His voice is tight, stripped of its usual rhythm. “Three rogues. They went through the front window about four minutes ago. Staff is locked in the kitchen. Civvies are running.”

“Shit, all right, I’m close by. I’m on it,” I tell him, then end the call, pocketing my phone. “Daniel…” I don’t look at him. “Stay here.” I’m gone before the sentence finishes landing, my vampire speed taking me faster than his eyes can comprehend.

The night air hits me like a slap as I mount my bike, start it, and pull hard into the street, carving through traffic that doesn’t move nearly fast enough. My headlights strobe past in pale streaks as the engine opens beneath me, and the world narrows down to the fastest line between where I am and where I need to be.

The Anchor & Anarchy sits on the riverside with its windows full of warm light on any given evening. Tonight, two of those windows are gone, glass scattered across the pavement like broken teeth, and the sound reaching me from the end of the block lands sharp. It threads through the night in jagged pulls, a voice shredded thin, catching and forcing itself higher, louder, past anything a body should be able to sustain. I hear the breath stutter between it, the strain, and the way it doesn’t stop.

It’s not a bar fight.

It is someone breaking.

I’m off the bike before it fully stops, the kickstand catching as I’m already moving, crossing the pavement in strides that eat distance faster than a human eye can comfortably follow. The front door is hanging at an angle from one hinge. I go through the gap beside it, dropping my shoulder, reading the space in the single second before I’m fully inside.

The bar is trashed.

Not robbed or tossed by some drunk asshole looking for cash. This place got hit by something strong enough to tear through it without caring what broke along the way.

Barstools lie splintered across the floor. Liquor bottles drip down shattered shelves. The register is in pieces near the end of the bar, like somebody ripped it out and threw it for fucking fun.

Two rogue vampires are ripping through the place like rabid animals, smashing into tables and walls with the mindless kind of violence that comes when the hunger burns away every last piece of control.

A third has a guy spread across the bar with its fangs buried in the victim’s throat. The sound coming out of him hits the back of my jaw hard enough to make my teeth clench.

I don’t slow down.

The nearest rogue snaps toward me just in time to realize I am there before I’m on it. My hand clamps around the back of its skull, and I drive it forward hard enough to slam its face into the support pillar beside us.

The whole damn column shudders on impact. The sound blends into one ugly hit that cuts through the bar’s chaos.

It drops to the floor in a dazed heap.

The second one comes in from my left like it thinks speed is going to save it, all aggression and bad decisions, the kind of move that works fine on people who don’t know how to hold their ground.

This is the wrong place for that, my friend.

I move into the attack instead of away from it, giving the rogue just enough space to think it’s got me, letting it chase the opening like a starving animal.

Its claws rip past close enough for me to feel the air shift against my skin. One bad step and it would have opened me up.

But I don’t miss steps.