Shadows Past: A Rune Alexander short. Book 5.5 of the Rune Alexander series.
Read Shadows Past: A Rune Alexander short. Book 5.5 of the Rune Alexander series. Online
Authors: Laken Cane
Shadows Past
A Rune Alexander short
By Laken Cane
Copyright © 2014 Laken Cane
Edited by Kelly Eurton Reed
All rights reserved.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, association with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. Ebook copies may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share with a friend, please buy an extra copy, and thank you for respecting the author’s work.
For more information about the author, you can find her online at
www.facebook.com/laken.cane.3
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www.amazon.com/author/lakencane
Dedications-
For my lovely readers.
A little taste of Shiv Crew while you’re waiting for book six.
Table of Contents
Fucking Christmas.
It was the holiday season during which Shiv Crew saw the most darkness. Murders, violence, and suicides climbed steadily from November to January.
And on Christmas Eve, they were right in the center of the black, swirling cloud that lay over Spiritgrove and spat sharp, evil darts at everyone who lived in the city.
Rune blew out a long sigh and her breath hung before her like a curious wraith, white and solid beneath the streetlights.
“You guys feel that?” she asked her crew, as they strode through the city and back to their waiting cars.
“What’s bothering you, sweet thing?” Z, walking beside her, reached out to catch her hand.
Maybe because the dark eeriness of the night was getting to her, or maybe because his hand was warm as it clasped her cold one, she didn’t pull away.
“Don’t call me sweet thing,” she said, out of habit. Then, “This time of year fucks with me.”
He squeezed her fingers, gently. He said nothing. There was nothing to say, really. Her crew—Raze, Jack, and Z—had her back. They kept her sane.
Sort of.
She stiffened suddenly, narrowing her eyes as she caught sight of a huge, hulking shadow standing still and sinister at the mouth of the alley they were about to pass. Her stomach tightened immediately.
“Berserker,”
she muttered. She pulled out of Z’s grip and touched her familiar blades, barely resisting the urge to slide them into her eager hands.
Strad Matheson awakened something primal inside her. Primal and fearful. He shouldn’t have—he was, after all, Jeremy’s man. Technically, he was on her side.
But there was something about him. Something terrifying. When she looked into his eyes, she saw nothing but a chaotic rage and the desire to kill.
He was a fucking…berserker.
And he scared the hell out of her.
As she and her men strode past him she couldn’t help but look at him. And even in the dark shadows his eyes glittered. He caught and held her stare.
It seemed as though she walked in slow motion, caught in the snare of his gaze for an eternity before finally she was past him.
She shuddered.
“You good, Rune?” Jack asked, and when she glanced at him, she saw that he hadn’t resisted his urge to fill his hands with silver. His blades flashed as he pushed them back into their sheaths.
They were all suspicious of the berserker.
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course I’m fucking good.” And if her voice was a little angry, they understood. Rune Alexander didn’t like people to see her fear.
Raze’s voice rumbled suddenly into the frigid night air. “Trouble.”
As one, they pulled their shivs, each of them on sudden and familiar guard. Were they ever not on guard? No. Not really.
Their lives were violent and bloody and every day was a fight to make it into the night as they battled the bad guys.
They were Shiv Crew.
And that was what they did.
“Fuck,” Raze muttered. “Rats.”
“Hang back, baby,” Rune said. “We’ve got this.”
Raze’s terror of the rats was well known. His phobia had no reason. It just was. They understood it, and they respected it. It didn’t make him less. It just made him human.
“No,” he said.
Rune sighed. He’d go after the rats with a vicious and desperate horror that meant the rats would not escape death even if they tried to run.
Raze would kill them.
And when she saw what they were doing, she was fine with that.
With Raze’s yell of disgust and rage leading them, they waded into the group of wererats.
A skinny teenaged boy knelt in the middle of the shifters, his hands—one of which was covered with a huge, bulky glove—held out in front of him. As she watched, he dug at the bound hand furiously, trying to get the stubborn glove off.
His face was bloody from the rats’ lethal claws. His clothes were too thin to keep him warm, and the rats had managed to make them even worse by shredding them to rags.
They’d been playing with the human before going for the kill.
Shiv Crew protected the humans from the Others, and the boy was human.
“Destroy the motherfuckers,” she said, furious.
The rats fought, surprising her. She’d fully expected the bastards to run. And at the end, one of them shifted to his human form, maybe hoping to halt the blade she held at his throat. “He trespassed into our territory, Alexander. He tried to seduce one of our girls.”
She stared down at him, her knee planted firmly on his chest, the tip of her blade sliding into his flesh. “Fuck you,” she whispered, and drove her blade into his throat with such force the tip hit the pavement upon which he lay.
Fucking Others.
She glanced up and stopped breathing for one long moment as she caught sight of the berserker, his arms crossed, watching them from a few yards away.
As she knelt there, frozen, he pulled the long, silver spear from its sheath on his back and threw it. Hard.
She ducked at the last minute, stunned, but as she rolled and leaped to her feet, Strad Matheson’s weapon of choice speared a huge rat through the chest, carrying him backward and pinning him to a streetlight pole.
The rat had been two seconds from sticking his claws into her back.
One corner of Strad’s lips lifted in a mocking smile as Rune stared at him. He walked by her and yanked his spear from the dead rat.
And then, he was gone, disappearing into the darkness and leaving them to the rest of the wererats.
Only two remained. Jack and Raze made short work of them as Z strode to the injured boy.
“You okay?” he asked, crouching beside the boy.
Rune knelt on his other side. “What’s your name?” He shivered from cold and shock, and she frowned when she noticed his arms were not only skinny, they appeared atrophied from disuse.
The kid didn’t answer, just stared quietly at the glove he hadn’t managed to pry loose. Duct tape had been wound around and around the glove and covered most of his forearm.
“I’ll put him in my car,” Raze growled. “Drop him at the hospital.”
“No,” the boy said, and after two attempts, finally made his way to his feet.
Rune and Z stood with him, Z reaching out a hand to steady the boy. That made the kid jerk away and stumble back so quickly he once again fell to the ground.
“Dude,” Rune said. “You’re injured. We’re taking you to the hospital. Would you like one of us to kick you in the head? We can get you there before you wake up.” She thought her offer was pretty damn reasonable, but Jack raised his eyebrows and sighed.
“What?” she asked.
He grinned and winked at her. “I’ve got this.”
Rune backed up and spread her fingers. “Be my guest, baby.”
He went to the boy, confident, stepping over piles of dead rat shifters and pools of blood. He wiped his blades on his pants, stuck them back into their sheaths, and held out a hand to the boy. “You can trust me.”
The boy stared up at him, his eyes dull from pain and cold, and at last, he pushed himself once more to his feet. He ignored Jack’s hand, but it seemed to Rune that he looked at it with longing.
“Good,” Jack said. “What do
you
want, boy?”
“To be left alone.”
“I understand that,” Jack replied. “Let’s take you to Rune’s house, get you patched up and fed, and then we’ll talk about the next step. Deal?”
The boy glanced around at them all before he nodded.
“Give us a name,” Jack requested.
After a short hesitation, the boy said, “Ben. Just Ben.”
Jack looked at Rune. “Okay with you?”
Rune watched the boy step a little closer to Jack. He seemed to think Jack was the lesser of the Shiv Crew evils. She shrugged. “Yeah. Take him to my place.”
And as they walked once more toward their cars, she couldn’t help but throw a glance back over her shoulder.
Fucking berserker.
“One more block to our cars, kid,” Jack said. “We’ll get there a hell of a lot faster if you let me carry you.”
The boy glared as he hobbled up the street. He wasn’t willing to let one of them carry him, but he didn’t object too strenuously to Jack’s arm across his back.
“What’s up with the glove?” Rune asked him. “Is that some sort of makeshift splint?”
He said nothing.
“Kid,” she prompted. “What’s the deal with the fucking glove?”
He frowned, but must have figured out she wasn’t going to let up until he answered. “I put the glove back on after I left.”
It wasn’t an answer, really, but she didn’t push it. Sometimes, kids were just freaks.
He swiveled his head from side to side, his stare watchful. Maybe he was afraid more rats would arrive to avenge the ones Shiv Crew had killed.
Or maybe it was something else.
The streets of Spiritgrove were unkind to the vulnerable.
And even as she had the thought, master vampire Nicolas Llodra stepped out of the shadows and into her path.
Ben gave a startled yelp and turned to run, but Jack grabbed his arm. “Hold up there, boy.”
“It’s almost insulting, isn’t it?” Z said. “Shiv Crew surrounds this kid, but he’s still terrified of the Others.”
Rune shrugged and looked at the vampire. “What do you want, Llodra?”
Several of his children came to stand at his back, silent but alert. He tilted his head and watched her, his dark eyes full of shadows and past agonies that only a master vampire would have experienced. He was old, though his face didn’t show it.
He’d been turned when he was young.
“Ms. Alexander,” he said, finally. “That’s a very interesting young man you have there.” And he turned his face slowly to spear Ben with his sharp, dark gaze.
Ben shrank away but stared at the vampire as though unable to look away, despite his terror.
Jack loaded his hands with silver and stepped in front of the boy. Z and Raze stood ready, eager fingers caressing silver weapons. All they needed was an excuse.
Nicolas knew better than to give them one. “We are going to the club.” He inclined his head at the building across the street.
Rune glanced at Club Kiss, standing with silent darkness between an adult store and a head shop. The club appeared empty and abandoned, but one had only to open the doors to see a place so full there would be little free space to stand or walk.
It would be bursting with music, laughter, dim lights, and vampires—as well as humans. Humans who liked to live dangerously, who were there on a dare, or who’d decided trying to find immortality was worth the risk of playing with the undead.
And bite junkies. It would be full of the desperate bite junkies.
“Then go,” she said.
“You are welcome to join us, Ms. Alexander,” he said, smiling slightly. “On this eve of Christmas, we have many exciting activities planned.”
And again, he glanced toward Ben, who was peering around Jack’s bulk. “Your young friend would be welcome as well. Your men should stay away, though. They’re too dangerous.”
He was suddenly standing right in front of her, too close. Much too close. “I know what the child fears. And I know what you fear. Have you realized what you are?” Again, he tilted his head. “What exactly
are
you, Ms. Alexander?”
Rune felt the blood drain from her face. She growled and pulled her gun, shooting the vampire full of silver before she’d realized she’d even wanted to. The shot flung him back against his children, who, even as Rune aimed for another round, never made a sound.
They flowed around their master like rippling water and carried him off.
He’d heal, the bastard son of a bitch.
“
I’m
dangerous, is what the fuck I am,” she bit out, thrusting her gun back into its holster with a little too much force. Fucking vampire.
“You sure are in a bad mood.” Jack reached around and yanked the kid out from behind him. “You don’t have to be scared, little buddy. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“We’re Shiv Crew,” Raze agreed.
“I’m not scared for
me,
” Ben said, his voice full of scorn. “It’s everyone else who should be scared.”
If their chuckles bothered him, he didn’t show it.
But when Rune looked at him, her eyes narrowed, he didn’t meet her gaze.
The kid had a story. She had a feeling that by the time she learned it, she’d wish she’d never set eyes on him. She’d learned to trust her gut.
“Dammit, kid,” she murmured.
Llodra’s words echoed in her mind.
“Have you realized what you are? What exactly are you?”
And his eyes had been full of mystery, curiosity, and knowledge. Too much fucking knowledge.
He mocked her.
“Rune?” Raze thumped her back, sending her staggering off the empty sidewalk. “You okay?”
“Ease up there, dude.”
The others laughed, and even Ben looked a little less grim.
She saw their cars ahead, lined up neatly at the side of the street, and thought for a moment they might actually reach them without further interruptions.
Then her cell rang. “Shit,” she muttered, looking at the display.
“Who is it?” Z asked.
“Jeremy.”
“Don’t answer,” Jack suggested.
She blew out a hard breath and put the cell to her ear.
“Where are you?” Jeremy asked. His voice, full of promise and pain, slid into her ear.
“Heading home. What is it?”
“Swing by Wormwood. There’s a human taking shots at Others.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Rune. See what’s going on.”
“Fine. I’ll check it out.”
“What?” Raze asked, when she pushed her phone back into her pocket.
“Altercation in Wormwood. Jack, take the kid to my place. Ellie’s there and will make you guys some dinner. Z and Raze, come with me.”
“Jack,” she called, when Jack turned away with Ben. “Figure him out.”
He nodded. “I got it.”
Raze followed her and Z to Wormwood, his car and hers very nearly the only vehicles on the road after they left town. Snow began falling, gently at first, growing steadily harder the closer they got to the cemetery.
“I’m glad we got Ben out of this weather,” Z said. He leaned forward and started looking through the glove box. “Do you have any food stashed in here?”
“Some candy bars. Give me one.”
She pulled up to the gates of Wormwood as he handed her a bar of candy, and thought about how she’d gladly trade the chocolate for a cup of hot coffee.
“Raze didn’t wait for us,” Z said, taking a bite of his candy bar.
“I didn’t expect him to. Come on, let’s go see what the fucking Others are up to tonight.” She got out and strode to the gates, shivering in the cold.
Z had his coat halfway off before she noticed what he was doing and stopped to glare at him. “Get your jacket back on, Z.”
“You don’t always have to be such a hard-ass, sweet thing. You’re cold. I’m not. Take the coat.”
And as she opened her mouth to argue a hoarse scream sounded, rising sharply before falling into an abrupt silence.
Z dropped his coat, and they left it lying in the snow behind them as they sprinted through the gates of Wormwood.