Archangel's Viper

21

Choking down that chilling realization because there was literally nothing she could do about it unless she wanted to confess and end up with her head on the chopping block—or her body caged in an isolation room—Holly said, “I’m wide awake and it’s only one thirty in the morning.” In immortal terms, the night was just beginning.

A sudden thought hit her before he could speak. “What about you? Have you had enough sleep?”

“I don’t need as much as small kitties.” Unaffected by her scowl, he said, “We still have to track down the individual behind the bounty on your head.”

Holly had nearly forgotten that with everything else that had happened. “What we know so far is that the buyer is deadly serious and doesn’t appreciate his or her time being wasted with false reports.” She bit down on the side of her lower lip, frowning at the idea of the hours she’d lost. “Anything else come to light while I was napping?”

Eyes on her mouth, Venom shook his head. “Your phone did ring several times while you were out. No one spoke when I answered.” He handed it over. “Fully charged.”

“Thanks.” Holly pulled up her call log, saw several familiar numbers. “These are pay phones in Zeph and Arabella’s patch.” She called one.

No answer.

The second one was picked up by Big Irma, a human who was an unlikely mother figure to a number of down-and-out vampires. “Holly!” she said in her energetically overloud voice. “Zeph was wanting to talk with you!”

It took a couple of minutes for Holly to narrow down where she’d be most likely to find Zeph and Arabella tonight. “Thanks, Irma.”

“Just remember who helped you next time you’re down here!”

“I never forget.” And she knew Irma’s poison of choice—menthol cigarettes.

Venom’s eyes glinted after she hung up. “You have a scent?”

“Maybe. Let’s go see.”

And all the while, the quiet, stealthy pulse continued to beat in her.

The streets felt eerie and treacherous tonight, the squathouse to which she tracked Zeph and Arabella using Irma’s information looming out of the night like an inanimate monster. Senses jacked up and the long knife she’d signed out of the Tower armory safe in the spine holster she’d hidden under a bright pink hoodie, Holly glanced at Venom and sucked in a breath.

“Don’t kill anyone,” she said. “No one in the squat is capable of being a threat to you.” Certain serious powers did hang out in the shadier parts of the city, but they had better things to do than prowl the dirty, graffitied dens claimed by squatters.

“I kill only those who need killing,” was the non-comforting answer.

He parked the Bugatti right in front of a group of skinny vampires with black scarves tied around their heads who were smoking outside the ramshackle building—the tobacco didn’t do anything to vampiric bloodstreams, but the taste and oral addiction seemed to work the same as in humans.

Prowling up to them, he said, “A single scratch and I’ll be extremely disappointed.”

The entire group had frozen at his appearance.

Now, one of the vampire gang found the courage to squeak, “Yes, sir.”

Not bothering to wait around, her gut churning at the heaviness in the air, Holly went straight to the doorway of the squathouse. The door itself was lying on the asphalt of the footpath, but that didn’t signify anything: Holly couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the door—tagged with multiple gang signs—in place.

Venom joined her just as she stepped into the humid semi-darkness inside the building, full of old air breathed out by countless people who had nowhere else to go . . . or who preferred to live in the shadows. The only light was provided by the miraculously whole streetlamp outside—its yellowish glow coming in through the uncurtained windows—and by a standing lamp someone had plugged in.

The entire first floor was open plan; the stairs that led up to the second level hugged the left wall.

Bodies stirred on the floor at her entrance . . . before going preternaturally motionless. Holly knew she wasn’t the reason for their fear—most of these people had seen her around. Some were friendly, some not, but so far, she hadn’t had any trouble with them. Glancing back at Venom, she told him with her eyes to let her take the lead.

He slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants, the suit jacket he’d put on over the top of his shirt so perfectly cut and fitted that she knew it was bespoke—and created to hide his weapons. Looking at him, no one would guess he was armed with two short swords worn in a crisscross harness on his back. Holly had seen him move with those blades; “deadly” wasn’t a strong enough word.

“Don’t brush up against anything,” she muttered, “or that’ll be the end of your fancy suit.”

His sunglasses reflected back her own image.

Scowling at the barrier, she returned to her examination of the squathouse’s first level. About half the people within were curled up asleep under ragged blankets or piles of newspapers, while the rest sat hunched up against the walls, trying not to meet her gaze. Holly soon spotted the telltale signs of a fight—bruised faces, clothing torn and damaged worse than usual, scrapes of what looked like fresh blood on the floor.

The bad feeling in her gut intensifying, she did a careful round of the area while Venom stood by the doorway, his mere presence ensuring that no one dared move. “They’re not here,” she said to him. “We have to go up.”

She was about two footsteps away from the stairs when a hand closed over the top of her shoe. Heart jolting, she glanced down to see a dirty and round face bordered by curly brown hair. Brynn. Holly knew her, knew, too, that Arabella often used her meager store of money to buy food for this mortal who wasn’t quite right. Even Zeph, junkie though he was, would Dumpster dive behind restaurants to make sure Brynn didn’t starve.

Sensing Venom stir behind her, she shot him a quelling look, then crouched down. Brynn was nearly lying on the floor, only her head raised. “Where’s Zeph, Brynn?” Holly asked gently.

“He got hurt,” the distressed woman whispered. “Real bad. Arabella, too.” She waved Holly to the darkness under the stairs and to two unmoving lumps it took Holly at least a minute to make out, the murk was so deep there. “I can’t wake them up.”

Sitting up, Brynn twisted her stubby fingers together, her eyes wet. “I tried to give them my blood even though Zeph says I never have to, but they won’t drink, Holly.”

Swallowing hard, Holly focused on the bloody drag marks on the floor below her feet. “Did you move them?”

Brynn’s lower lip quivered. “To keep them safe until they woke up, but they aren’t waking up.”

Holly went to the deathly quiet bodies of her friends and peeled back the old brown blanket with which Brynn had covered them. “Oh, God.” Fury was a tempest in her blood.

Coming down beside her, Venom took in the damage. “The woman is alive despite the meat pulp someone made of her face. Him . . .” Pulling down the blanket, he shoved up Zeph’s dirty T-shirt. “Heart wasn’t gouged out, so there’s a chance.”

Holly knew most vampires would regenerate from a beating this brutal, but most vampires weren’t as weak as Zeph. “Can you give them your blood?” He wasn’t cruel, had fed Daisy when necessary.

“I could, but they’d be better off getting an infusion direct to the bloodstream.” He slid his arms under Zeph’s body, uncaring of the dirt and blood that had to be soaking into his suit jacket. “Can you and the mortal carry the woman?”

“Yes.” Arabella didn’t weigh much.

Brynn followed her instructions without deviation, and soon the two of them were carrying Arabella’s badly beaten body to the car—which had no backseat. But Venom had already managed to fit skinny Zeph in the spacious passenger side footwell, now placed Arabella atop him, part of her body on the seat itself. “It’s a short ride,” he said when Holly went to protest the manner of transport. “Once you’re in, you can cradle her against your body.”

Turning to Brynn, he gripped the woman’s chin in his hand, but Holly could tell the grip wasn’t hard. “What happened to your friends?”

Brynn’s huge eyes held no fear of Venom; in her artless mind, that he was with Holly and had helped Zeph and Arabella meant he was safe. “Was a big fight,” she said. “People screaming so loud.” She pressed her hands over her ears. “I just hid until after, but Zeph and Arabella got stuck in the middle.”

“Shit,” Holly muttered. “We’ll never find out who started it unless Zeph or Arabella know. Things just erupt sometimes.”

The skinny vampire gang yet lingering in the same spot as earlier had no answers for them, either. “Heard there was a big fight here, came to see,” the one with the squeaky voice said through a haze of cigarette smoke, his skin a pasty white and his nails sharpened to points. “But it was all over by then.” A shrug. “Just the bottom feeders losing their shit.”

Holly felt her hand curl into a fist, but she didn’t plant it in the ass’s smug face. “Brynn, will you be okay?” She didn’t know how long Zeph and Arabella had been watching out for the other woman, or how well Brynn could survive on her own.

“I lost my things in the fight,” the mortal woman whispered. “I only got my blanket.” Brynn still had possession of the latter because they’d carried Arabella out in a sling formed of the blanket.

To Holly’s surprise, Venom peeled off several large bills and held them out to the skinny gangbangers. Dressed in white wife-beater tanks and low-hanging cargo pants in camo green or black, those stupid kerchiefs on their heads, they looked like children playing at being grown-ups. Holly wouldn’t trust them with her imaginary dog, much less a flesh-and-blood mortal like Brynn. But Venom wasn’t done.

“Use this money to get Brynn the food and supplies she needs, and keep her safe until her friends return.” His voice was mild as he added, “You really don’t want to cheat her, attempt to feed from her, or otherwise harm her. She is now under my protection.”

Irrespective of the wildly differing hues of their skin, the vampires paled as a group.

Their unintentionally choreographed response might have been funny in other circumstances, but tonight, all Holly cared about was knowing they were too fucking scared of Venom to defy him.

“No, sir,” Mr. Squeaky said. “She can hang with us. We got cattle at home, don’t need to feed from some other vamp’s donor.”

Brynn, her wrists and neck badly scarred from old bites, seemed happy enough with that solution. Wrapping herself up in her blanket, she joined the gang in their spot. Before Holly left with Venom, however, she made sure of the other woman’s safety by tapping into her own insanity until it colored her voice. “I have lots of eyes on the street. You’ll be watched.”

The cold words had the gang giving her a distinctly wary look.

Satisfied, she got into the car.

Venom drove straight to a twenty-four-hour clinic that catered to both mortals and vampires. The harried vampire physician on duty took one look at Zeph and Arabella and immediately hooked them up to blood IVs. “Best blood we have,” he said, his ebony skin dull with fatigue. “I sure hope you two are covering the bill or my ass will be on the line.”

“Send the bill to the Tower and it’ll be taken care of,” Venom said before Holly could respond. “We need to speak to them. Is there any chance either will wake soon?”

The doctor, dark circles under his eyes, took in both patients again. “Him, no chance. Her . . . give it a quarter hour and then, if you’re willing to donate half a glass of your own blood, you might be able to jolt her to consciousness.” A faint smile. “No clinic has access to blood as strong as yours.”

The wait was excruciating.

“Why did you help Brynn?” Holly asked as the two of them stood with their backs to the scratched and nicked wall outside Zeph and Arabella’s room.

In truth, she wasn’t expecting an answer, but Venom spoke. “The mortal reminded me of a girl in my village. Maina was as . . . innocent. Childlike while being a woman. Even though I was only ten to her sixteen, I already knew to treat her like I did my younger siblings, rather than like other girls her age. Her family married her off to an old man who beat her, until one day, she just didn’t wake up.”

So many memories in his head, so much dark history. “I’m sorry.”

“So was her family, but they were the ones who chose to think of her as a burden they had to shed.” Pausing after that harsh summation, he said, “The two within use Brynn as a donor?” The question was dangerously impassive.

“No,” Holly said at once, wanting him to know the hearts of the people he’d helped save. “Zeph and Arabella just pretend she’s their personal donor so that other vampires will leave her alone. It’s considered bad form on the streets to poach a donor who’s been claimed.” The two had been near starvation more than once and still never touched Brynn. “All those scars she has, they’re from before, when she was alone.”

“Maina’s family was high ranking in the village,” Venom murmured, “but your friends have more honor than they ever did. I’ll personally ensure they have no debts as a result of their medical treatment.”

Holly didn’t know why she did it; maybe it was the hopelessness she’d smelled in the squathouse, the hollow pain of a history that could not be changed, or because Venom had just ruined another suit jacket and pledged his own funds to help people he could’ve disregarded as not worth his time . . . but she closed her hand over his.

Neither one of them moved until the doctor returned to ask for Venom’s blood. He injected it straight into the IV, so it’d directly hit Arabella’s bloodstream. “That’s all I can do,” the doctor said afterward. “If she’s not awake in five minutes, she probably won’t come to consciousness tonight.”

A loud beep had the medium-height male rushing off to handle an emergency.

It was only thirty seconds later that Arabella’s swollen eyelids fluttered. “Zeph.” It was a croak.

“In the bed next to yours,” Holly told her, sliding two ice chips between the other woman’s bruised lips at the same time. “He’ll live, but you’re both going to be in the clinic for a few days.”

A struggling flicker of panic in the hazy blue of Arabella’s eyes. “I’ll pay,” she managed to whisper as the melting ice wet her throat. “Zeph . . . he can’t.”

It took Holly a second to understand. “The Tower’s taking care of the bill in thanks for your information about the bounty on my head.” Everyone had pride and this small lie would protect Arabella and Zeph’s. “You won’t have to sign up to serve an angel to pay it off.”

Her relief unhidden, Arabella turned to take in the sight of Zeph’s motionless form and of the IV running red down his arm. “Brynn?”

Yes, Holly thought, her outwardly powerless and broken friends had far more honor than many. “Safe.” She touched her fingers to an unbruised part of Arabella’s hand. “Do you know who did this?”

“Just a stupid fight. People acting crazy. Zeph said they smelled off, like bad stuff was coming out of their sweat.”

“It might be a new drug,” Venom said. “I’ll alert Janvier and Ashwini, have them follow up.”

Arabella had shivered at Venom’s voice, but found the courage to continue speaking. “Yeah, Zeph heard rumors of a new high.” A cough that shook her rib cage. “I made him promise a long time ago never to take any of the new stuff. Just honey feeds or I’d leave him.”

That was probably the only reason Zeph was still alive. “Is that why you and Zeph were calling? To tell me about the bad drugs?”

“No.” Arabella’s eyes fluttered. “We were hanging out in Times Square—I like the lights.” She smiled softly. “It got real crowded. I don’t mind so much but Zeph’s not good with it, so we found a place inside the closed doorway of a dress shop.”

Holly nodded, conscious that Venom had shifted so he was no longer in Arabella’s line of sight. “Did you see something?” People often didn’t notice those like Zeph and Arabella, who were used to fading into the shadows.

“No. Heard it.” Her eyelids fluttered again. “Two older vampires stopped near where we were hiding and we went real quiet because we know they’re mean. They were talking and one said, ‘Word came down straight from Walter Battersby. Score is solid.’”

As Holly frowned, Arabella took another shaky breath and added, “We couldn’t hear all of the rest . . . but we’re sure the second vampire said . . . Chang.” Arabella’s eyelashes shaded her cheeks, her badly hurt body pulling her into a deep, healing sleep.

“Who,” Venom murmured in the ensuing silence, “is Walter Battersby?”