The Den of Shadows Quartet (51 page)

A phrase was written in Latin beside the door. Translated, it meant, “Enter the den of the hunters.”

The door was unlocked, and Turquoise opened it, stepping forward into the main room of the Bruja hall with Ravyn and, strangely enough, Gabriel at her back. He confirmed Jaguar’s message about the deal Ravyn had made: legal freeblood status to the hunter who won today.

The floor was black marble, with Brujas motto carved into it. The light was too dim for Turquoise to read it, but she knew the words by heart:
In this world, there are predators and there are prey; only the former survive
.

Turquoise entered the hall knowing she didn’t want to lead these hunters.

However, she knew from experience that when a
vampire involved in the trade made a deal, his word was as good as law. When Turquoise won against Ravyn today, the burgundy hunter’s blood would buy her opponent’s freedom. Then Turquoise could kill Daryl without worrying about whether Jaguar had gotten rid of Jeshickah yet. Then she could get on with her life.

As soon as they entered, Sarta approached. “Ravyn, Turquoise? Are you ready?”

Ravyn walked toward Turquoise, a graceful predator’s walk. She snapped her whip, and it cracked little more than an inch from Turquoise’s skin, then wrapped around the hunter’s throat harmlessly. “I’m ready when she is.”

Turquoise shook Ravyn’s whip from her neck and lashed out, catching the handle of the other hunter’s weapon. One quick tug before Ravyn could react, and Turquoise caught Ravyn’s whip as it jerked from the woman’s grip.

Sounding amused, Sarta simply said, “The fight is to third blood. Ravyn Aniketos and Turquoise Draka, you may begin.”

Turquoise tossed the whip back to Ravyn, who accepted it with a glare, and the duel began.

Ravyn lazily snapped her whip in Turquoise’s direction, though Turquoise had already put herself out of reach. She was testing her opponent’s reflexes.

The opponents circled each other on the cold Bruja floor, watching each other for weaknesses.

“You’re not going to win,” Ravyn said.

Meanwhile, Turquoise watched Ravyn’s arm carefully, waiting for telltale signs that the hunter was about to move. The muscles tensed.

Turquoise saw the movement before Ravyn actually attacked with the whip, and raised her own. The two leather braids twined around each other. Ravyn pulled hers away with a practiced flourish, and then attacked low.

The material of Turquoise’s pant slit, but the blow wasn’t hard enough to draw blood.

“Are you playing with me, Ravyn?” she asked. Turquoise flicked her own whip, which cut open the stomach of Ravyn’s shirt, and Ravyn jumped back a pace. The wound did not bleed, but she could have made it do so if she had wanted. Turquoise saw the unease that slid behind Ravyn’s eyes as she realized her opponent had more skill than she had suspected.

Ravyn masked the emotion. “And here I thought you had no taste for fun,” she teased. This time when her whip cracked, it fell where Turquoise’s left cheek should have been. Turquoise ducked out of the way cracking her own whip as she moved.

“You little brat!” Ravyn’s free hand went to the new cut on her weapon arm.

“First blood, Ravyn,” Turquoise said calmly, hyper-focused.

Ravyn’s whip came down hard, too fast for Turquoise to get out of the way, and landed on Turquoise’s left shoulder at the hardest part of the snap. The skin split.

“First blood, Turquoise,” Ravyn said sweetly. “I saw Daryl a day ago,” she commented. “He gave me some pointers.”

Turquoise let the barb bounce off her ears. Ravyn’s whip cracked again. Turquoise moved slightly and her
opponent’s whip wrapped tightly around the handle of her own. Yanking, Turquoise pulled the other hunter off balance. Before even bothering to untangle the two weapons, she flicked her own, and it cut open the back of Ravyn’s left shoulder. Second blood.

Ravyn rotated the shoulder that had just been hit, and pulled her weapon away as she again moved back to gain distance.

“A little more practice, Turquoise, and you could be quite good at this,” she encouraged. Ravyn liked the sound of her own voice, apparently. Turquoise personally preferred a silent fight, but many hunters liked to talk; it helped them focus, and their opponents were more likely to be distracted by engaging in dialogue.

Turquoise refused to banter, and attacked again.

Her strike fell short, but she managed to evade Ravyn’s next one. There was blood running down her back from the wound on her shoulder. It wouldn’t be fatal, but Turquoise was annoyed to realize that she would have yet another scar.

Ravyn sidestepped Turquoise’s next attack. Her whip hit Turquoise’s right wrist and snapped around it, a mirror to the blow that Lord Daryl had given her years ago.

She hissed in pain, but forced herself to keep hold of the whip. Her wrist was bleeding heavily This fight would be over soon.

They were both at second blood. Whoever hit next would be the winner.

Ravyn attacked again, and Turquoise collapsed to the ground to dodge. Then, before the other hunter
could react, Turquoise snapped her whip around Ravyn’s ankle and yanked as hard as she could.

Ravyn lost her balance and fell to the floor hard on her back. Before she could recover, Turquoise struck with the whip one more time, drawing a fine band of blood from Ravyn’s left cheek.

“Third blood,” Turquoise announced, rising to her feet. The movement was more painful than she would have expected.

Ravyn silently raised a hand to the mark on her cheek. “If this scars, I am going to be
really
angry,” she snapped as she pulled herself off the floor. “Cheap trick, Turquoise.”

“It worked.”

Sarta had come to Turquoise’s side, and started to wrap a bandage around her wrist wound to stop its bleeding.

“Congratulations, Turquoise,” she began, but Turquoise shook her off, and wrapped the bandage by herself.

“I hope Daryl snaps your neck,” Ravyn growled.

With a chuckle, Gabriel wrapped an arm around his burgundy-haired friend’s waist, pulling her away before she could attack her bleeding adversary. The vampire turned Ravyn toward himself, and licked the blood from her cheek.

Ravyn shoved him away.

Gabriel laughed again. He caught the hunter’s wrist, and again drew her toward himself. He licked the blood from her arm, and Turquoise saw Sarta shake her head in disgust. To Turquoise, Gabriel said simply, “You’re freeblood, Turquoise. Go put a knife in Daryl for me.”

Ravyn leveled her garnet eyes in Turquoise’s direction.

Turquoise tossed the whip down at the burgundy hunter’s feet. “Take the title, Ravyn. I don’t want it.” She saw the shock on Ravyn’s face, but did not bother to stay and explain her decision.

She didn’t want to be leader of Crimson.

She ducked Ravyn’s punch, and ignored the ungrateful threat, then walked out of the Bruja hall for perhaps the last time.

T
HE BUS RIDE HOME
— to Nathaniel’s house, Turquoise hastily amended — was painfully long, and stifling. She wished she had driven, but had not wanted to risk needing to drive home injured. With a light jacket on over the black tank top she had worn to Challenge, Turquoise could feel sweat dripping down her spine. The wound on her shoulder ached as the salt found its way beneath the bandages.

She gave in, and took her jacket off, trying fiercely to ignore the looks people gave her. Maybe it was the wildly tousled hair, or the adrenaline-induced flush to her cheeks that made them stare. Or maybe it was the fact that the bandage on her wrist was highly visible.

She decided she didn’t care. None of these people knew her, or wanted to know her. They weren’t concerned enough to question a stranger.

Now what?
she wondered. She was through with Bruja. She would need to kill Daryl eventually. His pride wouldn’t allow him to ignore her forever, and
even if she had been willing to hide from him — which she wasn’t — he worked with mercenaries even more than she did, and would be able to track her down eventually.

What else?
Eric’s words echoed in her mind.

She needed action, movement, adrenaline. A tame white-picket-fence life would never suit her; it would bore her to death. She also didn’t want to ditch Jaguar and Eric now. With Jeshickah out of the way, Midnight might even prove interesting for a while.

For a while. But forever? For as long as a vampire could live? She didn’t know.

The bus stop was about a mile from Nathaniel’s house, in the center of town. Turquoise would have to walk home, but the day was beautiful and she had plenty of energy.

Hearing her stomach rumble, she took a detour into a gas station convenience store. She slipped her hand into her pants pocket, double-checking to make sure she had enough cash on her for some donuts and a soda. The thought amused her. She had eaten the same fare on her way to Midnight.

“Are you okay?” The old man at the register asked, a worried frown on his face as Turquoise approached to buy her snack.

Turquoise could not conceal her surprise. She had forgotten to put her jacket back on and her battered body was visible. As long as she had been in Bruja, she had stuck to anonymous cities. No one asked questions. But this town was so small and she had chatted with
this man on a couple of occasions in the last month. He would know that something was wrong, and feel comfortable enough to ask.

“Yeah … had a fall.” As a lie, it was awful.

An awkward moment ensued. The old man’s eyes were questioning.

“I’m a little accident prone,” she lied, trying to make the words sound realistic when they made almost no sense. She added, “I fell off a table when I was little, into a window.” She tried to add a smile and a bit of a “no big deal” laugh as she said it, but the memory was too raw. Vividly she remembered catching her father’s arm as Daryl shoved him back through the window. Daryl had grabbed her and tossed her onto a table, where broken glass had sliced open her arms and the backs of her shoulders.

The old man looked unconvinced. He patted her hand sympathetically as she handed him the money for her purchases. He handed her change, with a “Have a good day” goodbye.

She left quickly. Where was her jacket? She swore as she realized she must have left it on the bus.

She swore again when she recognized Greg a block down the street, walking toward her. She considered ducking back into the convenience store, but didn’t want to face the old man’s silent questions.

Too late anyway. Greg saw her, and waved hello, then sped up his pace to meet her.

“Cathy hi. I …” He broke off, his light jog turning to a sprint as he hurried to her side. “What happened to you? Are you okay?” Then he seemed to notice that
most of the scars were years old, and his eyes widened more. “What the hell? I mean, I’m sorry, but … what the hell?”

Turquoise’s nerve ran out. She had known living here wasn’t going to work from the start. She didn’t have the patience to deal with him now.

“Greg, I’m a mercenary,” she said coolly. “Mostly I hunt vampires for a living. I’ve been debating quitting my job and teaching middle school, but I hear it’s a little rough there.” The words dripped with bitter sarcasm.

She knew what his reaction would be — disbelief, fear — and didn’t want to see it. She pushed past him, walking quickly in the direction of her house.

Greg hurried after her, and caught her shoulder. She winced, pulling away as his touch hit the new injury.

Unsurprisingly he was looking at her as if she had sprouted a second — no, third — head, but he
was
trying to keep up with her.

“You mean vampires like … um, some criminal person, right?” he said hesitantly, trying to figure out her speech. “You’re a cop or something?”

He was so damn innocent. How could she ever hope to convince him?

She didn’t need to. He deserved his innocence.

She backtracked, slowing her pace a bit so he could keep up. “I’m sorry. It’s been a rough day” she said, stalling as she tried to add to what he already tentatively believed. If she tried, she could convince him of the reality of vampires. She could tell him what had really happened to Cathy and the rest of her family. But Greg didn’t need to know. He was happy. “You know I
was interested in psych, right? I got into criminal psychology in college, and I do some work with some people.” She made the lies intentionally vague, as if she wasn’t supposed to tell. Actually, she had no idea who she would possibly be working for; she knew nothing about the government or law enforcement. But Greg probably knew less than she did.

Greg said something noncommittal along the lines of “Uh-huh.” He kept walking with her, not talking for a bit, as if digesting what he had heard.

Humans had an instinctive desire to remain at the top of the food chain. Unless forced to see reality most of them would believe almost anything before believing that vampires and other such creatures existed.

“So. You’re with the government or something?”

Crimson was about the antithesis of the United States government, but Turquoise answered, “Yeah.” She added, “I’m not really supposed to talk about it.” That was vague enough. It would tickle his imagination, without straining against what he believed.

Greg walked her home. They didn’t talk much, though occasionally Greg made some attempt to start a new conversation. Turquoise wasn’t much in the mood to chat.

“Smells like someone’s having a bonfire,” he commented, blinking at the faint smell of smoke. “Speaking of, some friends of mine are having a picnic next weekend. Would you like to go maybe?”

He sounded so hopeful, she had to smile. She started to say no, but then changed her mind. “Sure. Why not?”

His expression lit up.

Before he could speak, the fire truck rumbled by. They both looked after it anxiously.

“I hope everything’s okay,” Greg said worriedly.

Turquoise picked up her pace. The smell of smoke was thicker now. A coil of fear was making its way from her stomach to her throat to choke her.

A few houses down, she began to see the flames. She sprinted, until a fireman caught her arm, pulling her back.