Mirror: Book One of the Valkanas Clan (16 page)

The bourbon arrived a few moments later, and I took a tentative sip. I was pleased to discover it could still generate that pleasant burn as I swallowed. I didn’t know if I could still get drunk, but as long as it took the edge off the temptations surrounding me, I didn’t care.  I closed my eyes to savor the warmth seeping down my throat and into my stomach.

I startled, spilling a drop or two, when my shoulders iced over and my phone buzzed against my leg simultaneously. I yanked it out to find a text message from Tom.

Bound him and men, but Cesar escaped.
Don’t know how. We’re headed to you. Stay safe.

As I was folding my phone, hoping that sensation in my shoulders was just a reaction to the incoming message, I felt a leg brush against mine. I looked up to see a man who reeked of tequila leaning back against the bar next to me, leering.
Or maybe it was a warning I’m about to get hit on by a
scuzzball
, I thought wryly.

“Hey sweetness, you’re a sight for sore eyes.
Whaddya
say,
comback
to my place?” he slurred.

I revised my initial assessment to include not only the reek of tequila, but also clichés and delusional levels of arrogance. He was leaning so far into my personal space I expected him to topple onto my lap—in
fact,
I was kind of hoping he would so I’d have the excuse to drop him onto the nasty floor beneath and burn off some of my agitation. He maintained his precarious balance, though, dropping his face right in front of me and staring me in the eyes. The stench of poorly-digesting alcohol was stronger than I could stand, and I placed my hand against his chest and pushed him back towards the bar. I'd forgotten I was no longer just an academic who spent more time with books than weights, though, so he ended up half-sprawled across the counter-top, staring at me through one bleary eye in surprise.

“You
coulda
just said no,” he muttered, steadying himself back into a standing position.

“This man bothering you miss?” a voice behind me said, and I turned to tell my would be white knight that I wasn’t in need of his assistance—and then froze with my mouth open as I realized he was a vampire. Taking advantage of my shock, he gripped my arm tightly and bent close, smiling at the bartender who was casting a worried look our way.

“Either you can watch me escort your friendly companion here out in the name of protecting you,” he whispered, still smiling, “and know that I’ll kill him the second we get outside, or you can come along with me and no-one has to die. Smile nicely for the bartender while you’re thinking, or else he’ll be in for a rather nasty evening as well.”

Smiling woodenly, I spun options around in my head. As frightened as I was, I didn’t think I could let some drunken jerk die because of me. Assuming this was the fourth vampire that had been chasing me, the one I hadn't hit with garlic or car, I should be safe—well, relatively. But if I left with him, Tom and the others wouldn’t know where to find me.

“Tick tock, tick tock,” he said, sounding eerily like Hannibal
Lecter
and making it very hard for me to keep a lid on my fear.

“Who are you? How do I know you won’t just kill me too?” I asked, playing for time. God I hoped Tom had a lead foot.

“Oh, look at me forgetting my manners. I’m Theo,” he said, sticking his hand out and smirking when I refused to touch it. “And I’m sure you’ve realized by now that Cesar wants you just as you are; he’d be very disappointed if I ruined his fun, and he’s a dangerous man to disappoint. Now come on, no more stalling. Are you coming, or am I taking the drunken Romeo out for a light snack?” He gestured to my would-be suitor, who seemed to have actually passed out while leaning upright against the bar, defying all laws of gravity or common sense.

“What did you do to him?” I hissed.

“That sounds an awful lot like concern, Alyson dear. Does that mean you’d rather not see him dead?” He tugged me to my feet.

“Let go of me right now or I’m going to scream,” I snapped, and he dropped my arm at once—instead slumping “Romeo” over his shoulder and making his way to the back.

“My buddy here has had a bit too much to drink,” he said to any bar patrons that glanced his way. “Excuse me while I help him out back.”

I glanced around, frantic. Any good Samaritan I might grab would end up dead, and by the time the cops arrived Cesar’s man would be long gone and I’d be stuck trying to explain a dead body. I looked back, noticing they were almost to a back door. I had to follow them. I grabbed my phone, punching in Tom’s number as I made my way through the crowd. As soon as I heard the click of him answering I began talking, praying he’d be able to distinguish my words from the background noise.

“Cesar’s men followed me. They’ve dragged someone behind the club. I can’t let them kill him. I’m going out there. Please hurry,” I said, stuffing the phone in my pocket and ignoring the “
Aly
, don’t—” I heard on its way down.

Matching the laws of scary movies everywhere, the back door opened into a poorly lit and deserted alley. Well, deserted except for the four hungry vampires who looked up at me as I stepped out. My throat tightened involuntarily when my eyes landed on the one I’d run over. Crap. Why was I doing this again?

Theo stuck his hand out, and the one I’d first sprayed in the woods begrudgingly slapped something into his palm. “See Don,” Theo crooned, his tone mocking, “I told you: she’s less than a week old and dumb enough to still sympathize with dinner.” He nudged something with his foot, and I looked down in horror when I realized it was the drunk from the bar.

“You…I came out, you weren’t supposed to kill him!”

“Oh he’s not dead.” Theo laughed nastily. “He might wish he was, but he isn’t.” As if proving his point, the lump at his feet groaned in pain.

My face must have betrayed my nausea, because Don began laughing.

“
Aww
, are you
gonna
get sick now sweetheart?” he mocked.

 ”Go take a flying leap,” I said, straightening, determined not to let them frighten me into submission in case Cesar was close enough to take advantage of it.

“Ooh, I like the feisty ones. I hope Cesar keeps you around for a little while,” Theo said, and skated across the ground to grab my arm, squeezing tight.

“Let
go
,” I yelled, twisting. I felt Theo hit the brick wall beside us with a satisfying thunk, but his grip never loosened and then two more hands grabbed my other arm. I flailed my legs up wildly, searching for enough leverage or inertia to yank free. I managed to land a kick on someone’s knee—I felt the joint bend backward, and heard a brief gasp of pain—before both my legs were grabbed as well, leaving me swinging and screeching in the air as they carried me towards Tom’s Jeep.

“It’s like trying to carry a wild cat. Watch you don’t get rabies,” one of them said, delivering an especially strong pinch to my leg as I tried to kick him.

Theo switched his hold on my arm so he could grab me by the hair and force me to look at him. “Cesar told us not to do any damage that would take more than few hours to heal unless absolutely necessary. You’re pushing us awfully close to 'absolutely necessary,' sweetheart.”

The thought that it had only taken me a few hours to recover from a snapped spine on the day of my attack gave me pause, as I wondered what kind of damage they could do that would be worse than that. My body slumped for a moment, almost dragging across the filthy concrete. And then the arm Theo had been holding suddenly fell free. I looked over and jerked, seeing his face inches from mine, his cheek resting in a puddle and an oddly shaped dart sticking out of his neck. Then I was dropped, undignified, into the puddle with him as the other vamps released me and spun to the mouth of the alley. I sat up, seeing nothing, but the warmth flooding my shoulders told me Damian must be nearby. Reinvigorated, I dug in my pocket for the forgotten garlic spray. Once it was out, I lurched to my feet, spraying the remaining vampires until the tube ran dry. They dropped to their knees, gagging and coughing, their skin turning an ugly shade of purple where the spray had hit them. I backpedaled towards the club, trying to escape the stench. Then more darts found each of their necks. Once they collapsed, so did
I
, arms wrapped around my knees as I sat on cold concrete steps that lead up to the club door, afraid to look away.

The door opened and closed gently behind me, releasing a brief burst of music into the alleyway. Tom joined me on the stairs, linking his arm through mine. He looked over at the pile of vampires blocking the alleyway, and wrinkled his nose at the lingering smell of garlic.

“Maybe I should join you in those self-defense classes of yours,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Looks like I might learn a thing or two.”

The shock that had immobilized me cracked. I rested my head against his arm, closing my eyes.

“Just call me the lean, mean, garlic-spraying machine,” I said, surprised to notice I was actually grinning slightly. “On second thought, scratch that. There’s no euphony in it, and
it’s
way too long. I guess I’ll have to stick with
Aly
.”

“Oh good.
I like
Aly
much better.”

“Me too.”
I smiled.

“So I don’t get it—how could Cesar get out, but none of his people could?” I asked.   I was curled up on the couch, scratching Beckett under his chin until his purr vibrated through me. He’d started weaving his way around my legs as soon as I’d let him out, and Valerie had invited me to keep him with us downstairs while we talked.

It had taken another few hours to drop Cesar’s people and vehicles off with one of the Duchess’s knights, but my curiosity (and the nap I’d caught on the drive back) was keeping me alert despite the fact that it was now past three. Luis had taken off as soon as we returned, and Sam had left a few moments later, rather abruptly. He'd come to the base of the stairs as I'd been walking down them, carrying a few kitty treats for Beckett, and looked up as if he was about to ask me something. Then Tom had walked through the foyer and Sam had muttered something about stuff he needed to do at home and left.

Damian, Valerie, Tom and I were all still up, chatting in the sitting room. I’d been surprised to learn that none of Cesar’s vamps had been killed, simply immobilized with a blowfish-derived neurotoxin that, while fatal to humans, was merely a temporary paralytic for us. One of the vamps from the house, in exchange for being transferred out of Cesar’s control and into Damian’s, had confirmed to Temora’s knight that Cesar had known I was a vampire and had planned to drain me of my blood anyway. This confession allowed the Duchess to now officially side with Damian and appropriate all of Cesar’s properties. Excepting the vamp who had confessed, Brandon, the fate of the rest of Cesar’s vassals had yet to be decided. Most of them were refusing to speak, perhaps because Cesar was still missing, and no-one had been able to figure out how he’d pulled his little disappearing act.

“I can’t figure it out,” Tom said. “He’d been hit with as much blowfish as Brandon and the other one, and left in the back of the station wagon with both of them.”

I found it highly amusing that a vamp as slick and power hungry as Cesar would keep a mom-mobile in his garage, and I smirked. Tom gave me a puzzled look, but continued. “When I came back after doing a final sweep of the house, Cesar was gone, and the other two were still knocked out in the back. I got your text about then, so we didn’t have the time to do another thorough search before leaving.”

“And,” Valerie added, “by the time we got you, contacted Temora’s knight, and got back to Cesar’s house there wasn’t a trace to be found—assuming there were any in the first place.”

“There are always traces,” Damian muttered, staring into the empty fireplace. He hadn’t looked at me since I’d told him I wasn’t picking up on anything at Cesar’s. The shame of disappointing him sat like a brick, which in turn ticked me off since I felt like no-one who I’d known for only a couple days had the right to such high expectations of me. But he clearly thought he did, and part of me seemed determined to feel bad no matter how much my rational mind told me it was idiotic.