Crimson Dawn (9 page)

Descantes was the first Sentinel to get there. He came swirling through the vents as mist, solidifying inside the room just as I was beginning to herd everyone out into the hall. He took one look at the remains and rushed to the window running his hands along the frame. Two more Sentinels joined me in clearing the room. When we were done, we closed the door behind us and turned towards a stony-faced Descantes.

He ran a shaky hand through his hair, looking at us with eyes filled with power and tempered rage. "This should not have been possible! This room should have protected her from Soul Fire."

We blanched at his words. Soul Fire was a weapon typically found in an Elemental’s arsenal. They were almost as old the Djin and even rarer. We learned as children that the Elementals were the replacements for the Djin and the most powerful race the Founders of all life had given birth to - Human, Extras, or Demon.

The Djin were once the favored of the Founders, created to be protectors of Humans, but they abused the privilege, so the Founders removed them as protectors and finally locked them into servitude to the Humans they had grown to envy and abuse. Modern society refers to the legendary Djin as genies. As powerful as the Djin are, the Elementals are stronger. The Founders gifted only Elementals with the ability to create new and unique life forms. They were the true creators of the Extras races.

I was the first one to say anything, "This is Tristan's work, Descantes. He did this using the sire's link."

He scrutinized me with disbelief on his face. "It's impossible. Vampires of old might have been able to do this type of damage, but that gift has been lost to your race for almost four thousand years now."

I heard the truth in his words, but I knew that Tristan was responsible for those deaths. I'd looked into Amanda's face and seen his eyes looking back at me.

Descantes gave orders to his men who whirled into motion taping off the area around the bed. A water nymph came into the room and began clearing the water from the room, evaporating it into mist and taking it into herself. Later she would expel the water and essentially strain it for any traces of magic it may have picked up to pass off to a tracer.

Descantes moved to the doorframe and pressed a glowing hand to the runes within it. His head bowed in concentration mumbling Aramaic to himself as he checked to make sure the wards were intact. He looked up with an even deeper scowl on his face, "This makes no sense whatsoever.” He squatted to look under the bed, finding the dream catcher intact and unharmed, still sparkling with power.

"These rooms are built specifically for Extras inhabitants taking into account any number of situations that may have placed them here.” He looked at Amanda's remains with a glimmer of pain in his eyes. "She was a fine woman and an even better Sentinel." He rolled his signet ring around his finger in circles as he talked.

"She came to me seeking a purpose with her life after Tristan left her to her own devices," he admitted. "She helped me police our people long before the Awakening. She deserved better than this."

I flinched against the pain in his voice, my personal time table for catching Tristan just got impossibly shorter. I knew he didn't believe that Tristan was responsible, but I knew differently. The quicker I brought him down the better. No one involved would have closure until that happened.

I moved to leave the room as more staff from Descantes' division came to do their jobs, but he caught me by the arm and pulled me into a corner. "I realize the higher ups decided to let the Charlotte CMS head the hunt since it's Tristan's home base, but I'm not going to rein my men in just because you're here.” He made eye contact with a short stocky Were standing behind me. The Were nodded and then left the room. He wasn't wasting any time putting teams on the street, and that wasn't necessarily a healthy thing. A bunch of half-cocked Sentinels emotionally charged over the loss of a fellow officer wasn't going to do this hunt any good.

I kept my opinions to myself. Descantes didn't need his line of thinking questioned right now. A quick look at what lay on the bed and his brow came together with a deep furrow. "While I may not believe he is personally responsible for these deaths, I do believe whoever did this act on his orders."

"You find out anything, I want to be the first to know. Do you understand?” He waited for my answer, but I wasn't ready to commit to his command. I had a C.O., and, damn it, I was already wearing the locator. He looked down at me with sparks dancing in his eyes, "I'm dead serious, Ms. Trumaine. You will not engage him without a complete contingency of Sentinels at your back. It that clear?"

I looked past his shoulder to the carnage on the bed and quietly conceded. My cell went off in my pocket giving me the out I needed to leave the room. I moved down the hall and read the text from Irulan. They had the name of a possible informant at a club called Crimson Dawn that was clear across town. She wanted me to meet up with them as soon as I could. Gladly, anything to take me away from here.

I mapped the club on my phone and headed for the closest stairway. I thought I'd made a clean exit when Descantes solidified in front of me. "Leaving in such a hurry? Anything you'd like to share?” He glared at my phone as if he could read the text through the darkened screen. For all I know, he could, but that didn't stop me from lying.

"It's 3:30 in the morning Descantes and, so far, my first night in Charleston has been a bust. I got nothing from either officer that helps me in any way, and, on top of that, I just watched two women, one of them one of those officers, roasted alive.” I waved my phone in front of his face, "That was one of my partners asking if I'd had any better luck than they had. I told her no. So now I'm going to have a few drinks to try and get the sight of that room out of my head.” I ran a finger across my lips and felt a jab of hunger in my stomach. "I also need to feed before the night is out, if that's alright with you."

The look on his face was one of disbelief, but he let me go without any further questions. Once I hit the street level, I checked my directions, memorized them, and headed out. I ran faster than the phone could keep up, so using GPS was out if I was really in a hurry, and I was definitely in a hurry. Running at top speed it only took me five minutes to reach the Crimson Dawn. To give you an idea of how fast I was moving, if I had been in a vehicle doing forty, even with no stops for red lights or stop signs, it would have taken me about fifteen minutes to get there.

The Crimson Dawn didn't look like much from the outside, just a red door under a small, black awning in the side of a dumpy building that looked every bit abandoned. There were no neon signs advertising its existence. That’s what the red moon stitched into the awning was for.

Most Extras clubs were like that. Although the government made us legal and forced the masses to accept us as a whole, the individual mindset was something altogether different. There are now units in traditional police stations designed specifically for catching Humans that hunted us illegally.

The only thing out of place was the bouncer standing outside the door. The bouncer was a Deadborn built like a brick house. He was a little short for my taste, only standing around five six, but he more than made up for it in the looks department. My hyped up senses needed release after all the excitement at the hospital, and he would certainly qualify. Sex was just as good as fighting if you could find the right person. While the Deadborn wasn't quite the right person, he would do to get my blood pumping. I twisted my ring around, so the signet wouldn't show, and sauntered up to the door with my aura radiating my hunger full blast.

CHAPTER SIX

I heard his sharp intake of breath when my aura hit him head on. The poor guy didn't stand a chance. He had reached my side before I was halfway to the door, eyes black and teeth extended in anticipation of what my aura said I was offering. I gave him a smile that was all teeth and ran my hands over the smooth black leather that was covering my ass. "I'm new in town." I hissed the words and circled him slowly, enticing the hunter within him with a challenge. "I was told I could find some fun at the Crimson Dawn. Is that true?"

He smiled and wrung his hands together, "Yeah it's true, hon. I'm gonna give you all the fun you can handle and save you the price of admission all at once. How's that for considerate?" I didn't need to experience the excitement in his aura to know he was aroused. I could smell the blood gathering in his groin, the temptation of a chase building in his veins.

Vampires were hunters first. Time may have evolved us into lawyers and CEO's, but the need for the hunt remained engraved in our DNA. Since the Awakening, blood bars and blood banks have become the standard practice for ‘civilized Vampires’ to obtain the necessary blood needed for feeding. There was also a surplus of Humans lining up to be tapped, some for the money, some hoping to be chosen as a turn.

No matter what methods they concocted to make us seem less frightening to the public, the majority of us still got our blood the old-fashioned way. Why? Because the hunt was about more than the need for food, it was erotic to us. Nothing compares to the long, lean lines of a predator on the prowl. The way a body moves when it exerts itself, sweat running down its lines. The hunt is everything. It fuels us, and right now, I was throwing gas on this Deadborn's fire.

The Deadborn twisted down into a crouch and took a quick swipe at my legs. I easily dodged him and dropped into a crouch of my own, leaning forward onto the tips of my fingers. "Hold it, big boy. No fun until I find out your name at least."

He launched himself at me, arms outstretched trying to pin me. At the last minute, I leaned out of the way. He whizzed right by me without laying as much as a finger on my person. Before he could redirect, I pounced and pinned him face first to the ground. He tried to buck me off, but I was stronger than he was by far despite his girth. I was just about to lean in for a quick bite on his neck when I heard footsteps near the door.

I looked up to find Irulan and Priest standing in the doorway of the club. Irulan didn't look amused, in fact, she looked down right upset, and Priest sported a hard on and a smug expression that just oozed the words 'I told you so'.

I looked down at the Deadborn underneath me and frowned. He was too far gone in his desire to notice we had an audience. Poor guy would be useless for the rest of the night. I can rein my emotions in and keep them in check until I have the opportunity to let go. Deadborns don't have that kind of control. He’d be a walking stiff until he found release, either through sex or through feeding, if he were lucky, both. A large part of me felt sorry for toying with him the way I did, but a small, nagging voice in the back of my mind didn't give a damn one way or another. He’s just a Deadborn, it said.

As I pushed away from my 'would be' one-night stand, I shook my head trying to dislodge the thought. I hated that part of myself, the condescending, pompous ass that most Vampires were. I was better than that. Pushing past Priest and Irulan to get inside, I flashed to the door unable to look back at the outraged Vampire that was now yelling at me, calling me everything but a child of God.

The interior of the club was mostly dance floor. From what I could tell, there were booths lining three walls and a bar taking up the last one. The DJ booth was quite large and fixed into a corner high over the room. An up-tempo R & B song pumped out of giant speakers aimed at the center of the room. Shifters and Weres filled the dance floor with a few other Extras sprinkled here and there.

Since it was almost time for a full moon, it made sense that the Lycanthropes were out in full force. This was the only time Weres and Shifters dropped their mutual animosity and acted like the true blood kin that they were.

Any other time of the month, they were barely amicable towards each other. Up until about six hundred years ago, give or take a decade or two, there was no such thing as Shifters, only Weres. Tired of having their lives controlled by the sway of the moon, one day a group of Weres banded together and sought a way to be free of the lunar cycles.

The group made some sort of pact with a demon, severing their ties to the moon and liberating them from forced change when the moon was full. They also gained the half form that most Humans associate with werewolves. The pact also included all of their future generations. The rest of the lycanthrope population didn't take to kindly to them making a demon pact and declared them blood traitors. The Shifters countered, calling the Weres savages, contented to live their lives as animals. If you ask me, I think it's stupid, but what do I know?

Both Weres and Shifters feel the power of the full moon. It sends the females into heat and the men ramp up with a need to mate. The only difference is that Shifters can choose to shift or not, the Weres have no choice. To be honest most Shifters choose to shift anyway, so why all the fuss?

A lot had happened in a short period of time, and trying to keep all the thoughts at bay were threatening to give me a headache. Swaying with the music, I dropped my shields, so I could see normally in the pulsating strobe lights, and. reached out with my aura to let the sexual rush the Lycanthropes were generating wash over me chasing off both my nagging self-loathing and the weariness that was trying to settle in.