Archangel's Viper

6

Holly bit her tongue all the way back to the city . . . until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Are you going to bed?”

A sharp look. “Why are my bed habits any of your business, Hollyberry?”

She fought the urge to tear off his stupid sunglasses. “I know you’re old and probably need more rest,” she said with mock solicitousness, “but we should head to the darker end of the city, talk to a few people who usually only come out at night.” It frustrated her to have a leash, to have to ask his permission to go into her own world, but Uram hadn’t damaged her brain when he’d Made her. Holly understood that if she slipped that leash, the consequences could well be deadly.

And not just for her.

In truth, these days she was far more terrified of what she might do than what might be done to her. Even now, she wanted to claw and bite and cause Venom pain, wanted to make him bleed until she’d created a shimmering ruby pool around his body. Hand fisting at her side, she gritted her teeth and silenced the horrific whispers that came from the madness inside her. But no matter what she did, one thing she couldn’t afford to forget: that she was the nightmare in the shadows.

“Where would you suggest?” Venom’s calm tone had the hairs rising on her arms.

But Holly wasn’t afraid of the viper that lived in him. The darkness in her, the part that wasn’t other, but simply part of who she’d become, stretched out toward him. “A lot of information passes through the lower-end clubs,” she said. “I have friends who patronize those clubs.”

One hand lying easily on the steering wheel, Venom turned his head toward her. “Wouldn’t your friends call you if they’d heard something useful?”

“They’re not that kind of friends,” Holly said shortly. “If you can’t be bothered—”

The tires squealed as he made a hard turn in the direction of the beauty and death of the Vampire Quarter. She knew the clubs with which he’d be familiar—Venom walked the dark side, but he was a very powerful vampire, one of the most powerful in the city. And power called to power. He’d be known at places that were elegant and drenched in money and strength.

Today, she intended to take him to the far seedier side of town. “You have to let me lead,” she said, ready to fight him on this. “The people on the streets will talk to you out of sheer fear, but they won’t tell you anything.”

“How do you plan to explain my presence?” was his silken response.

“I’ll tell them we’re dating,” Holly said flippantly.

Venom tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “Do they know about your abilities?”

“The jagged speed, yes,” Holly said, suspicious of his suddenly serious tone. “I wasn’t able to hide it well at the start.”

“Then the two of us make sense.” A slow, taunting smile. “They will assume you are my current pleasure toy.”

Scowling because he was right, Holly didn’t speak again until he was pulling into a dark parking lot protected only by an aged chain-link fence. “I didn’t know you hated your car.” This area wasn’t exactly the safest.

He got out and shut the door, not coming around to her side this time. “No one will be touching this car.”

She realized why when she saw the number plate: VENOM.

“Vain much?”

“I’ll get you a matching one that says KITTY.”

She knew he was baiting her but had to fight not to react nonetheless. Thankfully, keeping her heels from catching on the gravel of the parking lot provided a good distraction. They were on the cracked sidewalk within half a minute. She strode confidently down the street, Venom prowling beside her. “How can you see out of those glasses?”

“Good night vision.”

As she watched, he took off his sunglasses and folded them away into the top pocket of his suit jacket. And his eyes, they reflected the paltry light on this street in a way that was probably eerie, but that riveted Holly.

It irritated her to admit it, but Venom was as handsome as sin; the eyes were just the icing on the cake. “Do Neha’s eyes nictitate?” On the surface, the Archangel of India had normal brown eyes, but since she’d Made Venom, there had to be more beneath the surface.

“Yes,” Venom said, surprising her with the straight answer. “It’s difficult to catch and it happens very rarely, but yes.”

“Why aren’t her eyes like yours?”

A slow smile. “They are—but only for milliseconds at a time. Most people have never caught the transition.”

Holly tried to imagine Venom’s eyes in Neha’s regal face, couldn’t. “What about other vampires in her court? Are many like you?”

“None. Though she has been trying to Make another me for centuries.” Especially after he’d left her court at the end of his Contract: to serve the angels for a hundred years in return for the gift of near-immortality.

Neha had been more generous with her post-Contract settlement than mandated by their unusual agreement, and he’d had the money to travel, decide who he wanted to be. For the first time in a hundred years, he’d been free to live where he chose, serve who he chose, though he hadn’t been certain he wanted to be part of any court.

Then had come Raphael.

Venom had slotted into the sire’s tightly knit team as if he were a missing puzzle piece. Jason had even said as much at the time. “Finally, we are complete. We are the Seven.”

Neha and Raphael had been friendly back then, so Neha hadn’t fought his defection. She’d seen it as him being drawn to Raphael’s youth. “Wild to wild,” she’d said with an indulgent smile when Venom returned to her court to tell her of his plans. “Well, Venom, if I had to lose you to anyone, it would be Raphael.”

Venom hadn’t needed her permission. He’d served his hundred years with utmost fidelity, had earned his freedom. But archangels and queens like Neha weren’t always rational—and this archangel had kept her promises to him. His visit had been a gesture of respect and honor.

“Has Neha ever tried to lure you back?”

Venom sent Holly another slow smile, wondering exactly how much she’d picked up of the current state of archangelic politics. It was probable that she had no idea Neha now considered Raphael an enemy, though Venom had the feeling Neha’s hostility was intermingled with a deep sense of loss. When beings lived that long, their emotions tended to be complex, layered things where contrary feelings could exist side by side.

Venom wasn’t that old. His emotions were less knotty—and his pleasures simpler. Annoying Holly ranked at the top. “Everyone wants me.”

She snorted. “Doesn’t being that delusional make it hard to function?”

He felt his lips tug up . . . right as Holly stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk. He’d snapped out an arm and curved it around her waist before she did more than sway a little. She’d reacted quickly, too—just not as quickly as him. The side of her body slammed into the front of his, his hand fitting into the curve of her waist.

She was gone as fast, jerking out of his hold with the inhuman speed that made her so much fun as a sparring partner. “If I wanted to be pawed,” she said, brushing her arm as if brushing off his germs, “I’d go to a furry convention.”

“If you thought that was pawing, kitty,” he said with deliberate sophistication in his tone, “your education has been sadly lacking.”

She forgot her coolly elegant persona and made a face at him. He’d reached out a finger and flicked her nose before he thought about what he was doing. Eyes narrowing, she hissed at him, flashing those tiny fangs he still couldn’t believe were functional. “Next time you touch me, I’m going for blood.”

“It’s been said that once you go Venom, you never go back.”

“Argh!” Holly fought the urge to take off one of her high heels and throw it at his smug head. But she’d spent good money on those heels, she reminded herself. Money she’d earned in the work she did with Ashwini and Janvier—work that meant she had far better contacts in this part of town than Smugface Venomous.

Taking a deep breath in an effort to control her racing heart as the otherness that lived in her stretched inside her skin, she turned her attention to the club that had appeared out of the darkness. The neon was pink and blazing and the outside walls matte black covered in creative white graffiti.

Used needles lying carelessly against one wall glinted in the neon glow.

“They like pretty boys here,” she said to the deadly vampire who was very much a man. “You shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

His hand was suddenly against her lower back.

Holly went to kick back her heel when he said, “Don’t.”

It wasn’t the word that got her to pause, it was the tone. It was the same calm, dangerous tone he’d used just before they’d fought off the goons who’d tried to kidnap her. Scanning the area in the way Ash had taught her, she caught the furtive movement on the left, deep in the shadows to one side of the club.

Her chest eased. “I know them.” She stepped away from Venom’s coiled body. “Don’t follow me.”

He just looked at her.

Rolling her eyes, she patted the taut muscle of his biceps. “It’s okay, Sir Venomous, Knight of the Tower. You can move fast enough to rescue the damsel in distress if she squeals for help.” She turned and walked away before he could respond.

She could feel his eyes on her, but he stayed in position. Thank God. If he hadn’t, the two skinny vampires loitering in the shadows would’ve been ghosts in one second flat. “Zeph, Arabella.”

“Hol, hey.” The pockmarked male vampire smiled at her, his face so badly damaged that she’d believed for the longest time that he’d been Made while in that state and that vampirism hadn’t healed him though it healed most imperfections.

Then one night, she’d spent ten minutes with him; he’d only lasted three before starting to pick at his face with his ragged and dirty nails. His vampirism couldn’t keep up with the constant wounds, especially since Zeph didn’t exactly subsist on the best blood. Holly had tried to pay him for his information in good bottles of blood, but he preferred money—which he spent on honey feeds, where human junkies got high, then allowed vampires to drink from them.

As far as Holly knew, it was the only reliable way a vampire could get high.

Arabella, the equally skinny blonde vampire who was Zeph’s shadow, was no junkie, but she couldn’t deny Zeph, so it ended up the same. “Hi, Holly,” the female vampire said with a natural sweetness that always struck Holly, her fingers twisting her limp dreads in her hands. “You sure look nice.”

“So do you,” Holly replied in a gentle tone, seeing in Arabella what could’ve happened to her if the Tower had abandoned her—or if she’d abandoned herself. Which, frankly, she’d been inches away from doing. She’d never judge Arabella for the choices she’d made or for her strange loyalty to Zeph. “Were you guys looking for me?”

Arabella darted a quick glance behind Holly. “What’s he doing down here?” Her lush Southern vowels contracted, her fear a living being between them.

“He’s with me,” Holly said simply.

Arabella’s eyes widened, the harsh edge of fear transmuting into an openly female admiration. “Wow, Holly. That’s Venom. You did good.”

Holly bit her tongue rather than crush Arabella’s illusions. “Did you two want to tell me anything?” Every so often, the pair found her when they didn’t have any information to trade but were really hungry. Then she gave them blood vouchers that couldn’t be exchanged for money and were personalized to Zeph and Arabella so Zeph couldn’t try to barter them.

Just because a person was broken didn’t mean they had no value, no right to live.

“Um, yeah.” Zeph went to pick at a scab, stopped himself. He was like that, tried to be “normal” as long as he could. “We heard some guys were going after you.”

“They already tried,” Holly began.

“No.” Arabella tugged at Holly’s arm before snatching away her hand so quickly it was as if she was afraid someone would hurt her for daring.

Holly glanced over her shoulder and gave Venom the hard eye. He’d gotten closer, those irises of his penetrating the shadows as if she, Zeph, and Arabella were bathed in bright sunlight. Go. Away, she mouthed.

He slipped on his sunglasses instead.

Shifting her attention back to Arabella, she took the trembling woman’s hand. “He won’t hurt you.” She’d kick his ass if he tried. “What did you want to tell me?”

“There’s more guys,” Arabella whispered. “Someone put a big . . . Zeph, what’s the word?”

“Bounty.” Zeph scratched furtively at a scab. “Like if we kidnap you and give you to this person, we get a lot of money.”

Even though Holly already had that information, she let the two think it was new. Pride was as important as food when it came to survival. “How much?” she asked, not expecting a firm answer.

Arabella frowned. “I think we heard five million?”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his dirty jeans, bony shoulders poking out through his holey black sweater, Zeph nodded. “Yeah, it was five mil. I thought I was zoned out and hearing things, but I never had a honey feed last night. For sure, it was five mil.”

Five million?

Even in her wildest dreams, Holly wouldn’t value herself at that extravagant amount. “Thank you for telling me instead of attempting to kidnap me.”

“Aw, Hol, you’re our friend.” Zeph pulled off his ubiquitous knit cap to reveal hair of an astonishingly beautiful auburn that surprised Holly each time she saw it. “We don’t got nothing else,” he added. “Just the rumor. Some of the other vamps were talking about maybe trying to get you, so we heard.”

“But most won’t try,” Arabella said with a reassuring pat of Holly’s arm. “Folks know you’re with the Tower and it’d just be stupid to get on the Tower’s wrong side.”

Unfortunately, if people were strung out or otherwise desperate, that wouldn’t matter. “Here.” She slipped them personalized blood vouchers as well as money; she’d put both in her evening clutch just in case. “Go get the good blood first, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to you.” It took a lot to kill a vampire, but if Zeph or Arabella got any weaker, another vampire might rip out their hearts or tear off their heads to get at their meager belongings.

“Thanks, Holly.” Arabella touched her arm again and Holly noticed that the other woman’s ragged military-surplus jacket had become even more so.

“Arabella, you need a new coat.” It got cold at night, especially for a woman with no roof over her head.

“Not yet,” Arabella said before Holly could offer to replace it. “If I have anything new, the others will take it. Maybe after it’s a little colder?” A hopeful smile that was shaky at the edges. “I know a charity shop that has stuff.”

“Just find me when you’re ready.” Waiting until they’d melted safely back into the shadows, Holly turned to walk back to Venom.

And nearly slammed into his chest.