AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was reminded, chillingly, of a similar interaction I’d had with Sig a week prior. We’d been sitting in my living room, and he admitted his role as my great-grandsire—the originator of my vampire bloodline—gave him incredible power over me. He’d demonstrated this by making me put a gun to my own head with no will to resist.
That Clementine could do the same thing made me exceptionally nervous over the kind of abilities she would grow into as she aged. If she were to live long enough to become a council member, she would have the vampire world at her fingertips.
The man obeyed her, lifting the knife with a solid grip on the handle.
“Now, I want you to stab yourself in the hand, please.” She requested it like she was asking for a favor, with the sweet, wide-eyed innocence of a child. He didn’t even blink, merely held the blade for a moment, then thrust it downward, cutting through his own flesh and bone until the knife settled into the wood surface of the table. Blood beaded around the cut, but with the knife sealing it, there was little mess.
All around us the spell was cast off, and the men came back into themselves, including the man who had just stabbed himself.
He stared at his hand like it was attached to someone else entirely, and once the realization of what he’d done sank in, he screamed. The sheer volume of his cry gave me chills, but I didn’t let my uneasiness show. Instead I ignored the newly drawn guns and the men who had clambered to their feet.
“Sundown.” I glared, feigning a calmness I didn’t feel.
“We’ll see,” Marcela said coolly.
And beyond all reason, she let us walk out.
Once we were back on the sidewalk, I let out a sigh of relief. There was no way we should have been able to leave the bar with all our limbs intact, but somehow it had happened. We were still alive, but so were they. The only benefit that had come from our meeting was having faces for four of the necros. Marcela and her boys accounted for a small chunk of our troubles, but knowing who they were meant four fewer mystery villains to hunt down.
I would have preferred to kill them now, but it wouldn’t have worked. Someone aside from them would have ended up dead, and that was a risk I couldn’t take.
I matched my stride with Clementine’s. “That parlor trick back there, do you think you could do it on a larger scale?”
“If you’re asking if I can control the actions of a whole room of men at one time, the answer is no. I can subdue maybe forty or fifty, like you saw in there, but I can only manipulate one at a time. Potentially two if they were really weak-minded. Or children.” She shrugged apologetically, and I tried not to think about whether or not she’d tested her theory about children.
So much for the idea of using her to turn the biker gang against their masters.
“Well, the subduing thing is helpful, at least. Thanks for that, by the way.” I wonder if Holden had known how useful she would be when he’d gone looking for her. Someone had known she was a tough cookie, otherwise she wouldn’t have been made the gatekeeper at Havana.
“Glad to be of service.” She skipped forward to meet up with the rest of the crew, barely seeming to mind that we had just spit in the face of our own certain death. She was an odd one.
“What happened?” Desmond asked, coming forward to greet me.
“No one is dead. Yet. There are four necros in there, and I’m pretty sure one of them is the de facto leader. Her and her boy toy anyway. She was calling all the shots, and none of the boys were too bothered by her.” Realizing I still had my sword drawn, I re-sheathed it and nodded to Tyler. “Walkie the rest of the group, and let’s get the hell out of here before they change their minds about letting us walk.”
“Why did they let you walk?” Reggie asked. I tried not to take offense at his incredulity.
“Secret gave them an ultimatum and a fairly showy display of power.” Holden had joined us now, standing between Clementine and me so I was a buffer between him and Desmond.
“What did you do?” Des asked.
“Oh, you know me. Big threats, flashy sword. Clementine did all the hard work.”
The blonde vampire smiled at the compliment and did a small curtsy. “Though I be but little, I am fierce,” she quipped, putting her own spin on Shakespeare’s famous quote.
“Funny. That line always reminded me of Secret,” Tyler said, clipping the walkie back on his belt.
I almost blushed.
The three absent members of our party came around the building, and once we were again eleven strong, I started walking. I wanted everyone present to explain what I’d learned about the Hands of Death. More importantly, however, we were running preciously low on moonlight, and I needed to get myself and the vampires somewhere safe.
My original plan had been to herd the whole group to my apartment, but I now saw how foolish that idea was. With four vampires and myself in the mix, there was no way we’d all be able to comfortably wait out daylight in my tiny place. Calliope’s realm would have been a good alternative, if not for Genie and Desmond. Werewolves were prohibited in Calliope’s home, and I’d broken her rule a few too many times to think I’d be able to get away with it again. No matter how bad things were out here.
Genie had also proven to be less than stable with her power when she shifted—explosively so—and the transition from our world to Calliope’s was hard on the most controlled shifter. It wasn’t worth the risk to try.
“Where are we going?” Desmond walked alongside me, a few paces ahead of the rest of the group. Given the tone of his voice and the fact he was moving on autopilot, I was fairly certain he knew where we were headed.
“You’re not going to like it.”
