All Hallows Night (Night Series) (7 page)

The more Luc hurt, the more nasty he got. Luc didn’t hate me; in fact, my pulling away was probably killing him and the only way to defend himself against it was to act like a prick.

I got it.

I didn’t like it.

But I got it.

There was no time to eat or read that book that Billy told me to. All I had time for was to freshen up, brush my teeth, and toss on some clean clothes. A low-slung pair of faded and ripped-at-the-knees jeans and a skull-and-crossbones black tee. I’d burn the other stuff when I got back to my trailer. I’d been vomited on—odds were good that if a mortal touched it, the plague would spread. With a sigh, I closed Kemen’s trailer door and headed to the lost-and-found tent.

I’d been living mostly in his space since the morning I’d woken up from the coma. The stars winked from between breaks in the cloudy black sky. The breeze was much more balmy than it’d been in South Dakota just a few nights ago, but the air was still rich with the scent of carnival fried foods and sagebrush.

Flipping aside the flap of the lost-and-found tent, I stepped inside.

Like a sheep surrounded by wolves, the beautiful brown-skinned woman sat with a handkerchief to her eyes. Vyxen and Kane stood to either side of her. Vyxen—dressed in her customary acid-trip attire—stared at the woman with undisguised lust in her emerald-green eyes. Not for her body, no, Vyxen did not suffer from that demon. Vyxen’s demon wanted. Everything. Anything you possessed. She housed Envy, and right now the woman was in danger just being that close to her.

Of all of us, Vyxen had the hardest time controlling her urges. I’ve asked Luc to get rid of her many times, but my cries always seem to fall on deaf ears. Kane, on the other hand—another one of us Lust demons—was looking at her with seduction clear in his lavender eyes.

It always amazed me how mortals could see and not instantly feel the prick of
wrong
. We didn’t look human. Not really.

Because no humans looked as flawless, as physically perfect, as we did. Nor did their eyes glow. Several hundred years ago, the glowing eyes meant we’d needed to stay deep in hiding. But now, thanks to the advent of movies and freaky contacts, nobody guessed we weren’t wearing props.

“Kane, get your ass away from her. Vyxen, you too,” I growled.

Kane just blew me a kiss and, with a final trail of his fingers along the woman’s upper arm, left the tent. Vyxen, however, never really listened to me. All she did was take a miniscule step back.

“Pandora.” My name dripped like a silky slur from her tongue. Wrinkling her nose, she adjusted her cat-ears headband. “The woman, Juanita, was it?” She looked at the woman, her eyes a brightly glowing green.

Juanita nodded. She looked so small, wearing probably her finest dress to come to the carnival. It was well tended, worn in spots and somewhat faded, but with the red mum pinned to her bodice, there was pride in what she wore. Her hair was freshly washed, and though there were wrinkles around her eyes that bespoke a woman who worked hard for what she had, the mere fact that she’d come here with her son let me know she was
light
. She’d come here to have fun and hang out with her boy.

It lit a fire in my belly, made the demon inside me go wild. Walking up to them, I gave Vyxen a slight shove back and drilled her with a hard stare. I let my eyes do the talking, telling the hellcat that if she so much as laid a finger on Juanita, I’d gut her.

Vyxen never backed down. Not with me. Not usually. But tonight, she must have sensed just how close I was to completely losing my shit, because with nostrils flared, she turned on her chunky, five-inch heels and left.

Kneeling, I grabbed Juanita’s cold hand and made her look me in the eye. “Where is your son?” I asked in Spanish.

There was only one other Neph still here, Cash. A tall, ginger-headed, golden-eyed pride demon. Dressed in fitted gray trousers and a dove-gray silk shirt, he was striking. And even though Juanita was clearly upset, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from glancing at him.

But Cash would be no problem to her; all he needed was a good ego stroking to get him off. Which she was giving him plenty of.

“Dora,” he said in a smooth seductive burr, “I’m going to take a break.”

He really didn’t need a break. Cash’s Pride could sense the woman’s nervousness regarding his close proximity; he was giving me the space I needed to operate.

A pride Nephilim is an extremely valuable and rare commodity to have in a Neph family, and one we’d been lucky to nab from my cousin Adam’s sister carnival back in the States.

Juanita’s lower lip trembled and when she turned back to look at me, there was a helplessness in her eyes I’d grown all too accustomed to seeing lately.

“I swear to you, we’ll find your boy. But you need to tell me where you saw him last.” I patted her hand.

“We were grabbing some churros before going to see the acrobat show and I turned around for just a second”—her face scrunched up and her pain was like a fist in my heart—“it happened so fast. I called his name, over and over. Everyone was looking at me, but no one saw him. He was just gone.”

Now I understood why Luc had been about to rip Bubba a new one. I shuddered, wondering the same thing now—wondering if the boy had been tagged by a glutton demon.

But even as I wondered it, I discounted the notion almost immediately. As much as I’d been burned by trusting others, Bubba wouldn’t touch a child. None of us would.

I’d even give Vyxen the benefit of the doubt on that one, and I’d seen that girl cut a teenage vampire’s heart out with satisfied glee. But a mortal who was so clearly light and not dark (That was how we gauged whether a human would become our late-night snack or not, and we never screwed with light. Ever. It was a Neph’s only hard-and-fast rule.) just wouldn’t be on the menu.

“I know where the churro booth is. I’ll start there.”

Fat tears dripped from her eyes and plopped off her nose. She swiped the back of her hand roughly across her face. “How do you think you can find him now? I’m terrified that he’s gone.”

In the States we’d have just called the cops, left it in the hands of the boys in blue. But here in Mexico, cops weren’t exactly the first people you’d call in a case like this. Fact was there were a lot worse problems out there. One missing child wasn’t much of a priority in these parts. Bringing down meth labs and stopping cartels was. The job would fall to me and I’d be damned if I let anything happen to the little guy on my watch.

I shook my head. “You leave that up to me. What’s the boy’s name, and most importantly, what does he look like?”

“He’s wearing a Forty-niners shirt with tan shorts and blue running shoes. He’s got black hair and brown eyes and only comes to my chest in height. His name is Carlos.”

She rocked forward at the sound of his name and began keening. I wrapped her in my arms and gave her a giant hug. “You stay here. I will find your son. I promise you.”

Hands trembling upon her lips, all she could do was nod.

Taking a deep breath, I left her and walked out. Luc and Cash were waiting for me just outside. They didn’t appear to be talking, and the second I exited, Cash nodded and walked back in.

“Hey,” Luc said softly, and I got the sense that either his anger at me was snuffed out (for the moment) or he was ready to just move on.

Whatever. So was I.

I shook my head. “We gotta find that boy. You questioned everyone yet?”

Licking his front teeth, he shoved his hands into his jean pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “Yeah. Everyone says the same thing. They didn’t see him.”

“I saw you hand Bubba his ass earlier, can I assume it was about this?” Because if there was more going on here, I really needed to know now.

Jaw working from side to side, he nodded. “I wondered. I wonder about everyone here now.”

There were so many different meanings behind that sentence and I all I could do was snort. I wasn’t being sucked into this, not now. Carlos was my first priority.

“Think it’s a zombie?” he asked me as a couple strolled past, completely oblivious to the turmoil inside the tent.

Sometimes I really hated how ignorant humans were to the realities of the world they lived in. But then again, knowing too much was more of a curse than a blessing.

“I think this isn’t going to turn into another situation like the last one. That’s what I think,” I said, referring to the incident in South Dakota when a girl had been taken and killed by a crazed group of vampires. Only later had I discovered the entire thing was an elaborate ruse set up by the Order to keep me unaware of the real truth happening right under my nose.

He nodded. Luc hadn’t shaved today. There was a day’s growth on his face. I scraped my nails on the rough coarseness of it but didn’t speak. Sometimes there’s just too much to say and so you don’t say anything at all, even though it’s literally just below the surface.

“Yeah.” He snorted and then turned his head so that I could no longer touch him. “I’ll send Vyxen and Stryker to scout the south end of the carnival. Lynx and Greta to the north. Corrine and Attica to the west. You and me got the east.”

“You’re actually coming?”

“Figured we’re the only ones not manning a station tonight. Is that a problem?”

“Whatever, Luc. I’m not here to fight with you; you’re the boss. But we’re losing time just sitting here.”

His look was intense, hard, and probing. I felt it to the depths of my black soul and wanted to cringe under the pressure of it. It wasn’t lust staring back at me, or even hate. It was the type of raw pain that left you breathless and aching.

“Let’s go.” I turned on my heel, ready to find that boy.

In less than two minutes he’d rounded up the posse, and after giving them instructions on where they were to scout, we were on our way.

Carnival lights blinked and flashed, breaking through the darkness with glowing strands of neon blues and greens and purples and vivid reds. People were laughing and drinking and nothing about this felt wrong or off.

Not like the last time when I’d felt the shiver of death move through the air.

I frowned.

“Dora, we need to talk.”

“Luc, I couldn’t agree more,” I said as we stepped around a large buzzing electrical cable on the ground, “but this isn’t the time.”

“Then when is?”

I clenched my jaw. “Like when we’re not looking for a boy.”

He shook his head. “That’s just another excuse for you, isn’t it?”

I stopped then and planted my hands on my hips. “What is your issue? If this was all you wanted to do, then why in the hell did you come with me? We need to find the boy. I’m not going to—”

“What?” he snapped, the tone of his voice so biting that it startled a group of teenage girls standing in the Ferris wheel line.

The ride I was normally in charge of. But not tonight, thanks to that stupid meeting with Grace. Claudette was running the ride tonight, a wrath demon I didn’t know all that well.

“Let him die!” And all the anger, all my hurt, it came tumbling out then. I couldn’t stop myself. I slapped his chest so hard the reverberations moved like a shockwave through my arm. “I know you don’t much care what happens to humans, but I do,” I gritted out, intending to walk away because I couldn’t believe I’d hit him. I’ve never in my life hit Luc; it hadn’t felt nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped either.

His hand shot out and he yanked me back to him hard, his beautiful face contorted into one of barely leashed fury.

“Who says I don’t?”

Growling, I shoved him off me and turned, keeping my eyes peeled for a small boy in a red-and-gold shirt.

“Tell me, Dora? Huh? Since you’re the authority on what I do and don’t feel, tell me how you know I don’t fucking care?”

And I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t. I kept telling myself to let it go. To bow out of this one. Because all we kept doing was making the water under this bridge so impossibly deep we were both going to drown in it, but all my self-admonishments flew out the window.

“You asshole,” I hissed. “You think I don’t know what you did to those kids the night Kemen died? You think I wouldn’t find out that not a one of them were saved? You killed them all. You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me, you keep lying to me. So who’s the bigger bastard here?”

I was breathing so hard by this point that my vision was going blurry. He looked as if I’d slapped him. Startled. Shocked. Not the composed, cocky sonofabitch he usually was.

I blinked because I wanted his frost. His fire. I wanted more shouts and screams, something to feed the beast inside me, but he was giving me nothing other than raw, visceral hurt.

“Deny it, Luc, please.” My voice cracked a moment later. “Please tell me it’s not true.”

Turning his face to the side, a visible ripple rolled through his shoulders. “I can’t,” he finally muttered and shoved past me.

I tried to pretend like it didn’t bother me. Shoving my hands deep into my pockets, I cried out to Carlos. Over and over, yelling his name, getting strange glances from within the crowd, but no matter how many people we saw or how many little boys walked our way, there were none that were Carlos.

Thirty minutes later, Luc turned to look at me. “The boy’s not here.”

I didn’t want to concede defeat, but there was absolutely no boy fitting the description walking the carnival. I’d called his name multiple times, but it was hard to hear above the cacophony of music and chattering of brash humans.

“We haven’t checked outside the carnival. I really think we should—”

“Dora.” He gripped my face in warm hands and his touch brought both pleasure and pain. My lashes fluttered and my lips tugged downward and there was a cry building up in the back of my throat that had so much more to do with us than the boy. “He’s not here.”

“But you don’t know that for sure.” I looked at him. Dead-on, square in the eyes. Because I needed the contact, needed to see Luc. It wasn’t easy letting go of a love I’d had for hundreds of years. As much as I knew Luc and I weren’t right for each other, a part of me would always need him.