Running in the Dark Read online

  In the middle of these enterprises stood El Arquero. I’d driven by a couple of times while figuring out routes and surroundings. The building was tall and spare, separated from its neighbors by the dark twin slashes of alleys. An orange patina covered the heavy tile facade, intersected by strips of smoked black glass that were thicker at the bottom and narrowed toward the top of the third story. Bronson’s lounges in Anchorage, if they still stood after his war, featured a lot of neon and winking chrome. Flashy, bright and colorful against the grayscape of winter. El Arquero was designed to look like the freaking front doors of hell. All it needed was smoke and brimstone.

  I paused around the corner and pulled Mickey’s hat lower on my forehead, grimacing when my clavicle grated. It was one thing to walk into a nest while working, with my clipboard and a purpose. The laminate meant I was more than just a human, a courier rather than a woman, and I rarely had to venture any deeper than the entryway to get a signature.

  Blood lounges weren’t just for socializing and holding meetings and being seen. They were also sanctioned feeding grounds. Approved and regulated by human authorities, at least on paper, they were still buildings in which humans cut themselves open and bled for money. If that was all they did.

  My mom had been a feeder. Scars ran the length of her arms, precise and parallel, except for those that weren’t. When I was very young, I’d run my fingers over them as she rocked me out of whatever nightmare had woken me or happened while I was awake. She hadn’t been pretty enough to work in a lounge but her blood was desirable enough for house calls. Or the backseat of a car at the edge of a darkened parking lot. Or a vacant building.

  I’d wait outside, shrinking back against whatever solid surface I could find, wondering if that would be the time she didn’t come back. The vampires would parade out, flushed and satiated. At least the vamps in the lounges followed the rules. And Malcolm was in there, probably lording over them, all decked out in his pimp rags.

  I blew out a breath and kicked the toe of my boot against the sidewalk. I knew what Malcolm was before I hooked up with him. In theoretical, Wikipedia terms, I understood how he survived. But I wasn’t sure I’d see him the same after I witnessed him behaving as a vampire. Then again, I had a strong desire to live, so it wasn’t like I had a choice. Maybe they’d be between meals.

  Three heavy vehicles hulked in front of the club, exhaust fogging the air. The crowd that would gather later in the night, hoping to be allowed inside for a peek at the vampires, was absent. The club appeared closed, but energy crackled around the building. I jogged across the street, peering both ways and into all the shadows big enough to hide a person. The doors opened as I reached for them, swinging inward, which would be odd for a human business, but a lot of vampire places worked like that. It added to their freaky factor. As if they needed it.

  The doors shushed closed behind me, the cool air cut off and replaced with the cloying scent of lilies. I ignored the rise of claustrophobia and aimed for the warm, flickering light and polished glass visible through a doorway. A body stepped out, so large that it eclipsed the light. I slowed but didn’t stop. This wasn’t my first rodeo.

  “¿Que quiere?”

  I almost laughed. The list of things I wanted was nearing infinite, but seeing Malcolm had a long lead on all the others. The vampire sounded local, from what I could make out through the baritone rumble. Hell of a welcoming committee.

  “Tengo que ver Malcom Kelly. é les “

  “Imposible.”

  The vampire, who had to be six foot four, stepped back when I kept moving, pivoted away when I raised a hand. He stood beside a lectern, but the brawn of his shoulders and biceps beneath a dark suit coat indicated he was more security guard than concierge. Coarse black hair jutted away from his head over thick brows and a square jaw. Square head, more like it. He must have had a terrible time finding hats.

  A large mirror hung on the wall opposite me in a wrought-iron frame. I looked frumpy and coltish. He didn’t have a reflection, which was ten kinds of disorienting. Behind me, glass clinked and people talked in low murmurs, typical restaurant sounds minus cutlery and chewing. I ignored that. Malcolm would be working, not hanging out.

  I glanced past the guard, down a short hallway that opened up to the business side of the lounge, a room that resembled nothing so much as a library. A dozen small square tables topped with candles, identical pads of paper, and fountain pens stood obediently in even rows. Booths lined the room, discreetly closed away behind sliding glass doors that were no doubt soundproof. Several of them had thick privacy curtains drawn. I cleared my throat.

  “Me está esperando,” I said slowly, conjugating in my head and hoping I was telling him I was expected. “So solo le dijiese—”

  “Solo te repito una vez mas, jovencita, no es posible.” It wasn’t possible to see Malcolm, and the meathead didn’t want to repeat himself. That made two of us. He shifted, not moving toward me but somehow inflating himself. Turning up the intimidation factor. I dropped one hand to my hip and pointed at him.

  Frustration jumped on top of eighteen hours of fear and pain, and I struggled with the words. This was supposed to be my safe house in times of trouble, and yet all I’d gotten was more trouble. “Me está esperando I don’t think you understand who I am. My name—”

  This time he did step forward. I stiffened, refusing to retreat when he leaned down and bared his teeth. At least it was only his regular teeth.

  “You are not listening,” he said, thankfully also switching to English. “This is El Arquero. It does not matter what your name is, girl. You are not welcome here. Walk away. Find yourself a hive that enjoys the taste of desperation.”

  The guard straightened, his eyes gleaming with malicious amusement. He was calling me a fang-banger, thinking that I’d come for the bite. Because I wasn’t beautiful. Because I wasn’t well kept. Not the kind of girl who was worth Malcolm’s time. I took a deep breath, so angry that I actually needed more oxygen to function.

  Vampire energy assailed me, riding in on my drawn breath, but not in a directed way. The guard wasn’t trying to influence me, because to him I wasn’t worth it. So Malcolm hadn’t told the doorman to expect me. Fine. That was smart. Couldn’t have these people—Bronson’s people—knowing I was alive and running. There were other ways to play this. I rubbed my eyes, sorting through the ambient power, searching for the familiar heat that meant him.

  I didn’t get a fix on him like I would if we were alone together, when I knew exactly where to find him, but he was definitely close. I focused.

  Behind me.

  I turned, felt the guard step forward until he nearly brushed my back. The other room was lit by hundreds of candles and decorated in burgundy and gold. Shards of glass decorated the walls and formed a fragmented mosaic behind the bar. It was broken into conversation areas, and dividing walls jutted out at strange angles, creating small private areas in the open, larger room.

  The club was barely open, but there were still fifty or more people there, evenly divided between smooth vampires and excited humans. Most of the humans, flushed and bright-eyed—hopefully from the alcohol—were focused on an area near the back corner. I spied a familiar set of shoulders and tension fled me as if I’d unzipped it and stepped free. He was here, wearing another ridiculous suit—blue with chrome trim—but he was here. I took a step forward and a heavy hand descended on my shoulder.

  “He’s right there,” I snapped. “I’m just going to talk to him.” The hand clamped down, contorting the bones in my chest, and I gasped.

  Malcolm’s head snapped to the side. He glanced sidelong at me through that room full of fangs and eager strangers. I wanted to throw the guard’s hand off and run to him, to keep running out of that place, to somewhere quiet and alone and safe. Relief and something much stronger bubbled up inside my chest and I blinked rapidly.

  “You will leave,” the guard growled in my ear, “or I will throw you out.”

  “Get y
our fucking hand off of me.”

  Malcolm turned away, playing the politician, making an excuse so that he could meet with me. He bent down and picked up a metal goblet. Tilted his head. The male in front of him laughed.

  My eyes dried out and narrowed.

  The male in front of him was Lalo, the weasel who’d tried to feel me up at Vega’s. He wasn’t just alive, he was getting the VIP treatment. After Malcolm had been so angry, after he’d shown up and yelled at me, he was entertaining the rat while I was left to dangle. I’d missed an appointment with Soraya and been—for all he knew—missing for the day.

  Malcolm didn’t signal to the guard, didn’t send one of the roving servers to retrieve me. He just kept chatting away with the greasy sucker. I stifled the urge to tap my foot, or kick something.

  I had to check in with Carla, and if I was going to leave Chile—which I had a strong urge to do—I needed to do it immediately. Another five seconds ticked slowly by, and still Malcolm didn’t look at me. I chilled abruptly. It wasn’t that he didn’t look at me. It was that he wouldn’t.

  I backed up, bumping into the guard as I recoiled. “I’m going,” I heard myself mumble, my body floating, my mind locking down bit by bit. “I’m going.”

  The dark corridor seemed to close in on me as I drifted through it. I slid between the doors before they’d fully opened, jamming my shoulder, but I could barely feel it. I crossed the street on autopilot, stumbled as I stepped onto the curb. My stomach wrapped itself into an intricate, impossibly tight knot. I’d walked into his club, hurt, after I’d been attacked. And he wouldn’t even acknowledge me.

  The guard had called me desperate. Maybe I was. Not for the bite, but I’d given myself up fast enough. All those years of training, of working to protect myself from influence…all he had to do was smile at me and I fell apart. I rounded the corner, tugging at the brim of my cap as I passed a group leaving an office late.

  My breathed hitched and I stopped, my eyes widening. I’d been duped. Malcolm liked to play, and since I couldn’t be influenced, I’d intrigued him. He probably liked the challenge. Anger began to beat between my temples, replacing the sickening numbness. He was such an asshole. And I was such a fool.

  I started walking again, head down, picking up speed. “The fucker can’t even cook.”

  “Perdon, señorita,” a man lisped behind me. The hair on the back of my neck rose. Cold jittery energy and fang-impaired speech?

  I ran.

  And made it exactly ten steps before an arm snaked around my middle. My legs flew up into the air on the remains of my momentum. I clawed at the vampire’s wrist, trying to get free so I could get a hand into my bag. Then he stopped moving, with me tangled up and flailing in his long arms.

  “Aerin Crane?”

  I jerked my head around, breathing hard, still trying to get my hands free. “Thurston? What the fuck? Put me down.”

  “This isn’t right.” His iron hold relaxed and my feet found pavement. I turned until I could see him. One of his eyes was black, so swollen there were no creases in the lid. His throat was nearly as dark.

  “Jesus, Thurston! Are you okay? Where’s Livia?” Had she done that to him? Soraya had said drugged-out vampires had attacked their hivemates.

  His good eye widened and his fangs retracted. “She’s—”

  Tires screeched behind me and the vampire gazed past me, his beaten face going blank. Christ, I could not catch a break. I kicked, the heel of my boot catching the inside of one knee. He stumbled, then twisted me around, manhandling me like a toddler with a doll. He pulled both my arms behind me and the broken parts of my collarbone scraped apart. I screamed.

  “I am sorry,” he whispered against my ear.

  My vision fuzzed out. Dimly I felt myself lifted, then dropped onto my side. I breathed through the pain and pressure, unable to hold in a series of sad little whimpers. It subsided eventually, enough that I could see again, enough that I could almost think.

  I lay on a quilted leather seat, and I was moving. On the road, in a vehicle wide enough that I could lay nearly flat and heavy enough that I could feel the power required to make it move. I could feel, also, the cold aggravation of vampire. I took one final deep breath, wondering whether I’d be allowed to spend the rest of the night facing the back of the limo seat. What the fuck was Thurston doing, outside his territory, without Livia? And who in the hell had done that to him?

  “Is she okay?” a woman asked in a small, lilting voice. “You said she wouldn’t be hurt.”

  “She was already injured.” A man, with the same accent as Bren, but stronger. Realization clicked. South African. “Weren’t you, Aerin?”

  My stomach dropped. At least he didn’t know my real name. I levered myself onto my knees, then collapsed onto my butt. I hunched forward, cradling my left arm. Across from me, in the back of the limousine, sat two people.

  The male was pale, blue eyed, a strawberry blond with darker eyebrows and lashes. He seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him—tall and slender in a slick gray suit with a wide blue tie—in my memory. He was almost pretty, with a long, thin nose and curved pink lips. Well, pretty for a vampire who’d kidnapped me. I couldn’t imagine Thurston was working for two suckers. More likely, Livia’s scheme hadn’t gone down the way she’d hoped. This guy seemed a little high rent to be skirmishing over ghetto property, but maybe he was more interested in what they’d had inside the warehouse.

  I suppressed a sigh as I turned toward the other figure. Tilde, curled up beside the vampire, wore a short-sleeved V-neck sweater that matched the sucker’s tie. Her hair hung limp, and blue veins showed across her exposed upper chest and stick-thin legs, very little of which were covered by a loose, satiny white skirt. I couldn’t see any bite marks, but she was clearly unwell. What were the odds she’d been the driver of the pale car that followed me? The Peugeot was white, and she was an agile driver. Plus she’d known I was going to Mickey’s.

  A sucker pitting runner against runner. Sweat broke out across my back as I dragged my gaze to the window. Through the tinted glass, I watched us fly farther and farther from Malcolm. Not that he would have helped.

  I was on my own.

  Chapter Ten

  I couldn’t tell if the air in the car was freezing, or if that was just how I felt. I’d never been in such a small space with a vampire other than Malcolm, and he restrained himself even during sleep. Don’t think about him. This vampire radiated power, and the longer I was near him, the more certain I became that I knew him. A customer maybe, but not a recent one. My head swam, adrenaline competing with the numbing energy and soothing sway of the car. The sucker waited for me to speak. Rude on top of being the mastermind of a situation borne straight out of my nightmares. Fantastic.

  Tilde pulled at his sleeve, ran her hand up and down his thigh until he plucked it up and returned it to her. He also tightened his hold on his energy, pulling it close so it wouldn’t be so irresistible to her. He might as well have said “Stay,” she went so still beside him. I froze as well because I’d never felt a vampire, other than Malcolm, pull that trick. Shock, coupled with the fact that I needed to do something to keep from losing my shit, forced my mouth open.

  “I suppose you know we are registered couriers. So what do you want with us?” My voice came out mostly level, but I stopped speaking when his eyes traveled the length of my body before returning to my face. He smirked, eyes half closing, and to my horror I blushed.

  “You don’t appear to be on the clock. You do not wear your war paint, and I see no visible badge. How was I to know you were anything but a civilian?”

  “There are rules about that too.” Funny that he’d only be concerned with the extension of the law that protected couriers, but it explained why his guys had waited until I returned my roster last night. He didn’t mind paying the fines for damaging a human, but didn’t want to shell out the additional fee to our employer. Tilde was already broken, but he was keeping her around, so biting h
er hadn’t been an accidental, spur-of-the-fangy-moment thing. He was doing a job, and she’d gotten in his way. So too, apparently, had I. Whatever the hell the job was.

  “If you’re trying to disrupt Carla’s operation,” I said, feeling him out, “you should know that we don’t know anything about the business side. And if you think you can run her out of business by picking off her runners, you should have put some research into the job market around here. All she has to do is call a temp agency and she’ll be fully operational. So you can tell your employer that this strategy isn’t working.”

  He moved so quickly that I only got the sense of motion before he was inches in front of me, his arms planted on either side of my head. He moved one hand, slowing when I flinched, and tilted my chin up. Power coursed from him, scrabbling over my skin before it sank, throbbing, into my chest. I ground my teeth to keep from making a sound as the chilled river of power ran over and through me.

  He turned my head to the right, then the left, his touch as gentle as his energy was disturbing. Not physically disturbing, disturbing because it felt…good. He smiled, all brilliant white teeth and amused blue eyes, and recognition snapped into place. He’d been at the bar the night we celebrated me completing my run. The sucker I’d mistaken for a gentleman.

  He slid onto the seat beside me as if he’d been invited and crossed his long legs. Tilde whined wordlessly. Like a damn dog.

  “I could not care less about your Carla,” he said. Pleasantly. As if we were in the middle of a long-running conversation. “My name is Hendrik Vorster. And you are Aerin Crane.”

  He offered his hand and I reached for him despite the discomfort that turning caused. He held it more than shook it, and the intensity of his energy current increased. I struggled to get enough air and had to work to keep my eyes away from his. Whatever he was doing, it was intentional, an insidious seduction technique. I’d have bet he didn’t even have to speak and women fell all over him. And I’d have bet good money that’s the way he liked it.