Goddess With a Blade (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Rowan had been resting, going inside herself to conserve her power and get herself centered for the battle to come when the car came to a halt.

This time when Cindy opened the trunk, she was pointing a gun at Rowan. It had been a few hours’ driving so it was a fair presumption that the sedative would have worn off.

Of course the safety was on. Rowan sincerely hoped Cindy was a rockstar in bed because she was dumb as a pencil eraser, except an eraser had a purpose.

“I hope you enjoyed those last few hours. Get out and don’t try anything funny or I’ll shoot you.”

Rowan got out and took the place in. The place was decent enough for being out in the middle of nowhere. She breathed in deeply, not nowhere at all. This was in Dust Devil ground.

The magick inside her swirled, recognized like energies. Brigid was a blade deep within, waiting. She would burst from Rowan when the time was right. This was simply certain.

“No you won’t. He’ll kill you if you do. Then again, I’ll kill you after I’m done with him, so maybe you should shoot me.”

Cindy’s eyes widened.

“What? Did you think you could scare me? Bitch, please. You are nothing to me. Even less to him because there’s always another junkie whore who’ll sell herself and her friends out for another fix. Predictable.”

Cindy reached out to grab Rowan, but instead, Rowan reached out and grabbed Cindy. By the hair, which made a satisfying little snatch from the scalp when Rowan yanked her to her knees one-handed while she shoved the gun down the back of her waistband with her free hand.

“Not so fucking big now are you, junkie bitch?” Rowan leaned down into Cindy’s face, breathing in her fear like candy. “Shove me in a trunk. Attack my staff and the guy who’s saved your job by making excuses for you when you’re late? You soulless thundertwat.”

“All true. But I’ll have to ask you to step away from her, Ms. Summerwaite.”

Keeping Cindy exactly where she was, Rowan looked up to the front porch of the house. The voice sent shivers up and down her spine.
Crazy
was a kind word for what this guy was.

She was, she had to admit, a little freaked by the way this Vampire felt. There was no way she’d go into that house.
Nuh uh.
She wasn’t alive after all the shit she’d seen because she was stupid or took stupid risks. Still, it wouldn’t do to let this pass. Not at all.

“You must be Phineas Bolger. I’m Rowan Summerwaite, the Hunter and I’m here to serve my warrant on you for the deaths of humans. As for Cindy here? I don’t think I will be stepping away from her, thanks. You see, I’m out here in the sunshine and you’re a Vampire. May as well be raining holy water. Which, come to think of it would be so awesome. Anyhoo, whatcha going to do, come make me?”

“It’s winter. Sun will be down enough in an hour or so. I’ll come for you.” His thrall was intense, dark and sticky, thoroughly creepy. He tried to lure her inside, tried to control that small animal part still deep inside her humanity.

’Course he had no idea Theo had whipped her fight-or-flight reflex into shape by the time she was ten. And yet, there was no denying Phineas was a scary asshole
and
that she was totally pissed off that he tried to manipulate her.

Rowan stood, straightening, and snapped Cindy’s neck before she could stab Rowan’s thigh with another syringe she’d produced from her pocket. If she wasn’t mistaken the syringe looked as if it had been reused. If that bitch had given her Hep C or something else when she stuck Rowan back at the office, she’d be so pissed. But she couldn’t kill Cindy twice so she bent and carefully felt pockets, never taking her eyes from the shadowed doorway. “Yeah?” Ah, keys. Rowan jingled them. “Come the fuck on then. But come at me like a man instead of a little punk sending his errand boys. Pussy.”

She turned her back and got into the car. Pausing long enough to grab her phone and mark just exactly where this place was before fishtailing off and getting the hell away.

Rowan drove so fast she should have been pulled over multiple times. Clearly the car was not Cindy’s. It had old-school Vamp written all over it. Smoked windows, luxurious and spacious interior—great ride if you weren’t in the trunk. The kind of car you could push past ninety and not feel even a tiny shimmy.

She managed to get reception enough to call David, who informed her the entire world had been looking for her, with Theo heading the search.

She didn’t quite know what to say or how to process that so she didn’t.

“He’s going to come at me. I’d rather it be out here where there aren’t a lot of people. But I want my blade.”

“I’m already on my way.” David’s response was clipped, indicating he was already driving. “We had a GPS ping so I’m close. About twenty minutes away.”

She hung up and called Susan to check in. Susan congratulated her on the liaison appointment, laughed about how upset some were and urged her to “kill the murderous Vampire bastard.”

Rowan got out of the car when David arrived. She took her blade and felt the connection to her toes. Every single cell woke up.

“Go. Let the Scion know where I am.” She toed her shoes off, not feeling the rocks or thorny bits. Only the singing of the earth beneath her. Only the heat of energy as it surged through her.

“Déesse…”

“No. You can’t help and I don’t want to be worried about you. I got this. I promise you that.”

And she headed out, walking along the ley line drawing sinuous around the rocks and strata for miles beneath her. She’d stay right on this path, able to draw huge reserves of power when she needed to. Out here, six-hundred-year-old Vampire or not, they were far better matched then they’d be anywhere else.

There was no need to invoke Her. Brigid shone through, surging through her veins, filling her cells, wrapping around her bones, enhancing her strength and perception.

The sun was setting, the sky pink as the light changed from day to night. She stood tall and waited, feeling his approach on the wind.

And Theo was out there somewhere. Rules be damned, he’d do what he wanted and she couldn’t complain in this situation.

But flying wasn’t like driving with a GPS and as she wagered, Phineas found her first.

His descent was clumsy and she saw immediately just how close to death he was. The drugs had eaten him up and yet he stank of blood and a recent ingestion of the drug that way.

“I never thought I’d see the day when a Vampire as old and powerful as you was so lowered.” She sneered and backed up, circling as he did. Dying and drug-addled or not, he was a dangerous creature and she’d be dead if he got behind her.

“Blood bags have no place talking to me.”

“Seriously?” She pulled the blade from its sheath and paused to appreciate the deathly beauty of the whisper of steel clearing leather. “Love that sound. Don’t you? Well maybe not since I’m going to end you with it. Anyway, it seems to me that six hundred years ago you all had so much more scary stuff to say. Theo says scary stuff when he brushes his teeth.” She shrugged. “Guess that’s why he’s The First and you’re not.”

He lunged, faster than she’d imagined and she nearly stumbled dodging him.

“Not bad for an old junkie. What’s your deal anyway? Six hundred years of relative silence from you so you decide to go out like Jeffrey Dahmer or something? Worried the history books will forget you?”

“You dare compare me to some human?” He lunged again, with some fancy moves and she managed to get a nice slice across his chest even as the sting of his nails on her neck told her he’d gotten his own shot in.

“Gross. I bet meth skank venom is even worse than your normal stuff. Don’t you people ever wash your hands? And if you don’t want to be compared to a serial killer, don’t act like one. Didn’t your mother ever tell you you’d be judged by your actions?”

He punched her and she spit a mouthful of blood out. She needed to get in closer. The gun would be useless without silver bullets so she’d left it in her pants.

“You ate a Goddess.”

“Um, okay. Is this news? Yeah, I am Brigid’s Vessel and she’s pissed off.” Rowan stepped in, slammed her knee into his junk and when he went to his knees, hit the back of his head with the hilt of her sword before dancing out of reach.

“No matter. I’ll kill you both.”

“Yeah, nice try. Except I’m not a desperate, dope-sick dumbass like your previous victims.”

“They gave themselves to me. Their marrow was sweet and laden with the drug.”

It was impossible not to curl her lip at that. “Gross.”

He laughed and her skin crawled. “You’re all specks of dirt. At least in being the deliverer of the drug, their lives had some meaning. What would they have been otherwise?”

“Oh novel. A Vampire with a god complex.”

“Better than a sheep with a coward Goddess in her belly.”

The heat of Brigid’s full ascendancy burned through Rowan with so much intensity, Rowan nearly dropped her blade. Rowan heard herself speak as her blade sliced out, making a long, ruby line of destruction along Phineas’s belly.

“Vampire, you are an abomination and we will end you.”

Rowan was there, but not there as her normal speed doubled. But she felt it when he broke her left arm and then pulled it from the socket at her shoulder.

“You fucking piece of shit,” she ground out, kicking his stomach and baring her teeth when he howled in pain. “You come here to
my
city and you think you can kill humans and just dump them like garbage? You think you can do that and not face any punishment?” She paused slicing his right ear off, the display of his pain and the beginnings of his real fear spicing the air.

“I am six hundred years old!” He bellowed this as he charged her, knocking her off her feet and to the ground with a whoosh of air from her lips. Her blade fell from her fingers, which she then used to gouge one of his eyes out with.

“Yeah? Big.” She punched his temple, her fist slippery with blood, her vision graying with his weight on her broken left arm. “Fucking.” She yanked on his hair so hard she ripped a handful out. “Deal.” Finally with enough leverage she cast him off and managed to get to her feet, bending to grab her blade again. That’s when the blinding pain let her know he’d broken a few ribs.

“You didn’t even kill them for a reason!” Somehow this knowledge that he’d just sort of viewed the women he’d murdered as appetizers whose job it was to serve him and his addiction only made her angrier. “You didn’t do it for some whackadoodle serial-killer crazy reason like communicating with the sun god or trying to make sex zombies. You are just an old, shot-out waste of power.”

“What do you know of it?” He looked her up and down, dismissing her.

“I know. I’m just a girl, how can I know what it means to be some batshit-crazy-ass-tweaker-drug-dealer-serial-killer Vampire? Gosh, I’m confused.” She cocked her head and smiled, knowing her mouth was bloody and her arm hung useless at her side. And still, she knew she was just as scary as he.

He blinked his one good eye, first slowly and then he got it and she laughed. “Don’t feel bad, many of you guys totally underestimate me due to my penis-deprived state.” She laughed again. “Well, um, the not having one of my own that is.”

“A human female won’t ever best me.”

Enough was enough. She closed her eyes, gathered her focus and, one-handed, spun and moved in, slicing him open from balls to the top of his head.

“Yeah?” She stepped back as he sizzled and began to implode. “Good thing I’m not human, huh?” She spit on him. “Die, you piece of shit. This is for all the women you killed.”

Turning her back on the smoldering pile, she didn’t bother with her usual blessing. Instead she put her blade back in the sheath and used her good arm to give his corpse three snaps as she managed to stumble away.

Clive landed at the car and looked around. He began to call her name until he caught sight of her limping toward where he stood.

Within moments he had her in his arms as she managed to tell him she’d killed Phineas Bolger and that her arm was broken and her shoulder dislocated.

“Let me put you out. I’ll drive us home and we’ll get it seen to.”

She was just about to assent when Theo shot from the sky to the ground with a sound so feral and scary it woke her up enough to get her adrenaline pumping again.

He spoke in their mother tongue and everything around them stopped, even the light breeze. He moved like death and she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from him as he glided toward the spot Phineas used to be.

She didn’t know what all he said, but Clive stood there, pale, holding her in his arms while she rested her head against his chest and tried not to pass out.

Theo turned his back and the last bits of Phineas simply burned up and were gone. She knew enough that he’d withheld the words Vampires needed to cross over. Their legend stated that their master could deny that access to final rest.

Theo looked at her, emotion a riot all over his face. He leaned in, kissed her forehead and used his words to put her into a softer, pain-free place. “Take my blood, petal,” he whispered, his lips against her temple. “You’ll heal much faster.”

“I need to deal with the house. His house. There might be people there.”

“Nadir has taken care of that. There is nothing there now. Nothing but ashes.”

And he put his wrist to her mouth and all was warm and quiet and she knew only dreams.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“There you are.”

Rowan opened her eyes to find Thena bending over her bed. When she saw Rowan was fully aware, she bent down and kissed her smack-dab on the mouth. “I go out of town for a minute and you go and nearly get yourself killed. I thought we discussed this.”

“Yeah well, I’ll try. You didn’t have to come back to town, dumbass. This isn’t my first go around with stitches and broken bones. Anyway, how’d you get home so fast?”

“Girl, I swear.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Where else would I be?”

“Um, on an exotic getaway with your hot professor husband playing
Give Me a Better Grade.
”

Thena laughed. “We play that one a lot. Plenty of time to play it more. I was already on my way back. I had a scary dream. Three of them as it happens. All about you. You needed me and I wasn’t here.”

Rowan managed to sit up as David materialized to fluff the pillows and help. “I’ll return with something to drink. The doctor said you’d need rest, fluids and that if you required the pain medication to take it or he’d be very unhappy with you.”

“My arm isn’t broken.” She wriggled her fingers.

“His blood…” Clive strolled in looking effortless and handsome, the arrogant smile on his face sending her pulse racing. “We got your shoulder taken care of first. The doctor put a temporary cast on it and he gave you more blood a few hours later and it healed.”

She knew she blushed, she couldn’t help it and she was too tired to stop it anyway.

“That’s some magickal shit right there. He was worried about you. Theo,” Thena added when Rowan must have looked confused.

“Where is he? How long was I out? What happened to the house? Did anyone tell Jack?”

Clive wished most fervently that Rowan’s friend would just leave so he could pull her into his arms and know she was all right.

“The police are still looking for the killer, but Jack knows.” Thena looked to Clive quickly before looking away. Clive hated that the other man was such an asshole and would cause Rowan pain though she’d gone out of her way on his behalf.

Rowan waited but when they said nothing else, she got the idea. He hated the sadness on her features.

Thena stood. “I need to go home for a while. I’m glad I was here when you woke up. Glad you woke up, period. Damn it. Rowan, girl, how about an easier line of work?”

Rowan snorted a laugh, but also knew Thena would be on her demanding details about Clive after she’d given her a little time to recover. “Yeah, well luckily most of the Vampires I deal with aren’t crazy, drugged-up, six-centuries-old serial killers.”

Clive sat on her bed after Thena had gone and gave in to his need to touch her. She melted against him. “Hi.”

“Yes, yes, hello yourself, you damnable, infuriating woman. Why didn’t you come back to town where we could have dealt with him together?” He wanted to shake her, but instead held her tight.

“Bringing him into town would have endangered humans. It’s my job to protect them, remember? Also that far out I could slice him in half and no one would see.”

“Are you actually proud of that?” He couldn’t help a smile. She couldn’t see it anyway.

“With a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder? Hell yeah I’m proud of it. Piece of shit. I wish I could kill him again.”

“I wish I could kill him too. Damn it.” He drew her away enough to look into her face. She was soft this way, in her bed with her pajamas on. Pajamas with little white sheep all over them and one black one over her heart. Whimsical.

“The First knew something was wrong. Summoned me and we contacted David. We got the texts shortly after that. Good thinking. I guess I can see why they keep you around at Hunter Corp.” After the texts had come, they’d worked on finding her phone with the GPS but when they went out of service, it wasn’t working well enough to give them more than a sixty-mile radius and it was still daylight.

He had never in his entire lifetime felt as helpless as he had after her call had come and they’d had to wait until it was dark enough to move.

The First’s lieutenants had put them all in a van with darkened windows and they headed out to where she’d given her last location as.

Every minute had felt like an eternity as they waited in the dark, until dark settled in outside and they could break free and take flight. It was as if his breath had been held until he’d landed and seen her, limping, covered in blood, on the verge of passing out with a pile of smoldering Vampire in her wake.

“You came for me.” She grinned and it was lopsided, like she was, and he didn’t quite know where to put all the ways she made him feel about her.

“Yes, well. I may have hit my head or something.”

She laughed and he made her rest against the pillows. David came in with some juice and crackers along with some pain pills. “Take them. No arguments or I’ll have Thena come back over.”

Rowan’s eyes widened and she held a palm out and took the pills as ordered.

“I’m supposed to be healed with super Vampire blood goodness. Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck?”

“Phineas’s venom was particularly nasty. He was dying, his bodily fluids were toxic. You got a big dose of it. He also broke a few ribs. The First healed most of it, but the rest your body will have to heal from incrementally.”

He told her the remainder of the story. About the lab they’d found at Phineas’s house. About the data that’d been collected about the ways the drug worked on Vampires. Phineas had to have known he was dying and yet there was no doubt he was as addicted as the women he’d been using to feed on.

“We know a great deal more now. At least that much was helpful. It’s going to be a problem.” He shrugged. “But we all die with this drug. He probably only had maybe a week left. Most of us aren’t six hundred.”

“Is this a glass-half-full moment? Because I need to tell you I’m going to be billing the Nation triple time if I have to eradicate another Vampire that old and strong who is strung out on super drugs. Got me? Despite my easygoing ways I truly hate having my ass handed to me. It hurts.”

He cringed. “It’s these moments, dear Hunter, where a man asks himself just what he’s doing with a woman who courts danger the way you do.”

Her glib look faded. “Yeah? I think it’s my sparkling wit and my pelvic floor muscles.”

He laughed and hugged her to him gently. “The latter more than the former.”

“That’s good. I really have to practice the last one. The wit part comes naturally.”

“Don’t panic, but I think we just had a regular, utterly nonhostile conversation.”

“Duh, we’re talking about how awesome I am. Who can argue with that?”

Because he didn’t want to resist, not after all the panic and worry, he kissed the corner of her mouth, right where it curved up into her smile.

David tapped on the door, but to Clive’s surprise, she didn’t recoil from his embrace as the other man entered her room.

“You have a visitor. Your foster father.”

She started to get out of bed but David put his hands out to stay her. “No. He said quite clearly that you were to stay resting. He’ll come in once you’re ready.”

“He walked in on me once when I was thirteen. Changing my clothes. I don’t think he actually even saw anything, not that I had anything to see then, but I think I scarred him forever.”

“I heard that, petal,” Theo called out before he entered the room and she laughed.

David’s back was pressed so hard to the wall, Rowan worried he’d leave an impression. “You can go. I know you’ve probably been up taking care of things for hours. Thank you, for all you do for me.”

He got over his fear enough to come to her bedside. The Vampires moved, though Clive stuck very close and Rowan told herself she was too weak to stop him.

“You do good in the world,
Déesse
. I’m honored to help you achieve that.”

“You’re going to make me sniffly in front of the guests.”

He smiled briefly as he squeezed her hand. “We wouldn’t want that. I’ll just be in my room. You’ll call if you need anything.”

“Did you just boss me around? Damn, David, what a bad influence I am.”

He barked a quick laugh and left the room, skirting the Vampires as much as he could while not being disrespectful.

“Sit, please.” Rowan indicated a nearby chair and Theo gracefully folded himself into it. He reached out, squeezed her ankle and sat back.

And then he lectured her for five minutes in German about going out there alone and then not coming back to town to get help and how he’d have sent his lieutenants anyway, treaty be damned and if she’d gotten killed he’d have been very, very angry.

She nodded and listened, knowing he needed to say it all and admitting, deep down inside anyway, that it was nice to hear.

They’d never have a traditional or close relationship. It wasn’t what he was capable of and she couldn’t totally let go of what he’d done, even if she did understand it. But he was hers and she was his in their own unique way and it was enough.

When he was done, he sat back and sighed.

“It’s a good thing you’re known for your patience,” he muttered to Clive, who looked surprised briefly and then nodded. She regretted that she’d fallen off her neck tic plan and committed herself to it anew.

“I’m in the room. Also, this is not 1567 or something and I’m not chattel. Moving along. I’m going to be speaking with the Motherhouse shortly and filling them in on the whole episode. It’ll be my recommendation that we create a task force to monitor the situation. Vampires supercharged on crystal meth is a threat and one we cannot ignore.”

“We will not accept any new restrictions without a full renegotiation of the treaty.” Clive spoke this time, as Scion.

She shrugged. “Yeah well, we all want things. You lose any moral authority when six-hundred-year-old Vampires eat humans and leave their bodies for all to see.”

Theo heaved a sigh. “So quickly back to a thorn, my little rose.”

“You wanted me in this position, if you recall.”

He sent her a single raised brow and she remembered her place quickly enough. But still she took one last chance and grinned, rewarded by an amused shake of his head.

Theo stood. “My time here in Las Vegas is up. I must go home again. You will come to me next time. In just three months, as it happens for the next meeting of the Joint Tribunal. You will take dinner with me.”

Oh yeah, she’d have to do all that now that she’d been made the Liaison. She nodded. “I’ll see you then. Thank you for your assistance.” She hesitated, reaching for…something. “Your help was invaluable.”

He paused on his way out. “I am, as always, your father, Rowan. Even when we serve different masters and goals. You are mine, even though I have made mistakes.”

He left and she said nothing and Clive, Goddess bless him, didn’t press, only straightened her coverlet and let her get herself together again.

It was at that moment she realized she might just have some room in her life for a Vampire boyfriend and a lot of sneaky meetings and probably a fuckton of politics too.