Night Fever (A Rue Darrow Novel Book 3) (15 page)

Although she was insanely strong, Georgia hadn’t fought at all. She froze in fear, but not one of the ghouls went near her. They sensed one of their own and let her be. In the end, I had asked her to stand to the side and wait for me.

“Wait,” I called after the man before he moved more than a few steps. “Are you sure he won’t hurt you? Nathan tends to think everyone is his enemy when he’s wolfing out.”

The man blinked at me. “Except you.”

“I’m his girlfriend.”

His eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn’t known that. “A vampire.”

I compressed my lips. “Yes.”

He studied me a minute and then nodded. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself, and I won’t hurt Nathan. We will fight the ghouls.”

I glanced at Georgia. She rocked from foot to foot, hands clasped and staring into the shadows. “Georgia, are you sure there’s no person controlling the ghouls.”

“Only a master.”

“There
is
a master?”

She shook her head, and her wig tilted. “Only a master can control us.”

My frustration grew because I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was still behind the ghoul attacks. They weren’t ordered in any way, but something was going on. Tonight, it seemed like the attacks were on the rise.

At the edge of the city, in an area that led straight to the water, I shivered. The area was dead and dark. Nothing moved, and it gave me the creeps. Miles of inky black water lay before us, and behind us the city of New Orleans. In the distance, I heard the ghouls’ cries and maybe Nathan’s growl. For some reason, I felt isolated even with Georgia beside me. I didn’t like the spot and wanted to get out of there.

“Georgia, I think you took us down a wrong turn, sweetheart. Can you try harder to hear?”

She whimpered, eyes wide as she stared at the water.

“Georgia?” I touched her arm. “Are you hungry? You can go and eat really quickly if you like, but I’m definitely not waiting for you here. This spot gives me the willies.”

A low moan escaped her, and she began working her jaw, rocking harder. All of a sudden, I got what the problem was. Georgia couldn’t think anymore, and if she couldn’t think, that meant—ghouls. Lots and lots of ghouls right here.

Chapter Eighteen

Maybe if I could bring up a map of the city, I would have seen it sooner. I could have with my phone, but I didn’t dare take my gaze off the spot where I knew the ghouls were. Just as I thought, someone else was involved.

Right before me, in a spot that appeared to be the start of the coastline, someone had erected a wall. The barrier extended quite a ways, and it was made of magic, not a physical structure. My stomach roiled as I approached, and the nearer I grew the more certain I became. I had been in this area before as I searched the city, but I saw no reason to approach the levees. Ghouls were dead, but I couldn’t imagine them swimming.

As I walked, my fingernails extended into claws, and my fangs lowered. Vibrations from the wall raised the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. “Stay there, Georgia,” I rasped, my voice going deeper.

Magic tingled along my nerve-endings, the finer points of it dissipating with my approach. I felt it bending but not breaking, and then I heard them. Hundreds of moaning voices rising like a tide. There was no way in the world I could fight them alone.

“Georgia,” I called back to her. “Go get help. Bring Nathan here.”

“Okay.”

Her heavy treads grew distant. I stopped walking to wait. If I tried to break the wall now, I might be overwhelmed. Better for Nathan to fight with me and Lark. Even with us, it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe we should call Inna and the others. Unfortunately, I didn’t have her cell number. Francis? No, I had influenced him to disobey Silvano as much as I would. Violet was also out.

I rolled my shoulders and rocked my head on my neck, working out the kinks. Nathan’s unmistakable howl rose above the ghoul moans. He was still several miles away by my judgment. Then, without warning, the wall came down. At least two hundred pairs of crazed eyes stared at me, and I stumbled back a few steps.

I whirled this way and that, but I couldn’t sense another person. The one behind the attacks had lowered the wall on purpose, knowing I was alone. Nothing to do but fight. I leaped in among them and began giving my all. Too soon, a group of them piled on me, driving me to the ground. I fought my way through, feeling their bites. The darkness closed in, and each time it did, I climbed to the top. One died at my hands, two, but it wasn’t enough. Their cries deafened my ears so I could hear nothing else except them.

“We’re going to end this tonight,” I shouted. “Do you hear me?”

I don’t think they did. They kept coming. I raised one over my head by an arm and a leg. Hurling him knocked over a row of others. While they struggled to untangle themselves, I started in on another group. Someone snatched my hair, and my head whipped back. Flat, rotten teeth approached my throat. I stuck two fingers in his eyes. He staggered.

When I freed myself, I grabbed another ghoul around the crown of his head and used him as a bowling ball. I would have yelled strike if I had the energy. No, I was losing the battle, bleeding, and weaker. What in the world was keeping Nathan and Lark?

“I can use some help, guys.” Who knew if they heard me.

When I was buried again, I just managed to crawl out of the stack. Twenty-five, thirty ghouls down? Sure, I had broken a record, but what difference did it make if I lost in the end? To make matters worse, blood lust began to distort my thinking, making it harder to reason. The ghouls weren’t making me hungry because—
ew!
Their bites caused me to lose blood, bringing on my hunger. Before long, I knew I would abandon the fight just to feed. Without that wall to hold them back, they would descend upon the city and the humans.

Just before I reached my limit, a voice spoke in my head.

“Rue, help me. Please!”

Georgia could speak into my mind? I never knew. She cried out again, and I found a new compulsion. As her master, I had an obligation to protect her. She was in trouble and calling for me. Even while the danger on my end was greater, I couldn’t resist Georgia. My ignorance had gotten me into much worse trouble than I could have predicted.

Instead of my blood lust leading me away from the ghouls, Georgia’s cry for help did. I felt compelled to go and find her. The one advantage was that I didn’t need to scour the city. I headed straight to her location. Georgia’s cry led me to the spot where I used to work at The Rusty Ankle, where the Stanley brothers now ran their laundry service.

The building was lit up lower and upper floors, and an ominous air hung about the place. I whisked through the door, the top edge striking the bell so hard, it caved. Instead of one of the Stanley brothers behind the counter, I found of all people—Almonester. I admit my mouth fell open.

“You, Almonester? I thought… How could you…?”

He held Georgia around the neck, and when I appeared, he thrust her to me. Georgia tumbled into my arms, sobbing. “I’m sorry, Rue.”

“Shh, quiet, Georgia.” I couldn’t focus on comforting her. Almonester was a dangerous enemy, and exhausted from the previous fight, I didn’t have much to stand against him. I needed to focus, or at least attempt to. “Almonester, answer me. You were controlling the ghouls?”

Like Orin and Pammie, I expected Almonester not to know me. When I changed the past, I made it so we never met. He shouldn’t know who I was. For that matter, he shouldn’t hold a grudge despite the fact that I had ruined his lucrative business.

“Rue Darrow.” He snarled. No such luck.

The squat man with beady black eyes and a thick heavily-muscled body scrutinized me with more hate than any I had ever seen. Recognition also glittered in the ugly depths. I hoped it was just that he had gotten wind of my reputation, such that it was.

“Did you think you could get away with taking away my bar?”

More back luck. I was on a wonderful roll tonight. I went for a light air that fell flat the moment the words left my lips. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He tapped a clawed black fingernail against his skull. Had they always looked like that? “I didn’t forget. I’m not stupid enough to fall under the interferences of a baby vampire, and the small ghoul attacks provided me with a great way to get to you.”

“You say the nicest things.”

He snarled. “I’ve been around a long time, much longer than the cubs you know and associate with.”

His claim brought Violet, Nathan, and even Silvano to mind as I speculated over his age compared to theirs. I already knew nonhumans aged slower. One could look thirty and be two or three hundred. My curse meant I would look the way I did now forever. I knew plenty women back in my hometown who would give an arm to have that part of my curse—without the other hang-ups of course.

Needing to buy time as I waited for Nathan to come, I continued to feign ignorance. “Almonester, I’m not sure what notion you’ve gotten into your head, but I don’t know anything about a bar. And what are you doing in this laundry? Do you know the Stanleys?”

I didn’t care if he did or didn’t or even if the brothers were involved. The idea was to keep him talking. Almonester’s eyes seemed to darken to chips of coal. No, not coal, and I admit my nerves were starting to rattle a bit because I didn’t know the extent of his power. His eyes looked like black holes ready to suck me and the rest the city inside. I assured myself this was a trick of his evil aura and tried to shake the feeling.

“They are nothing to me except that they think they can have my prime property. They are wrong.”

“Hmm, they seemed pretty powerful. If I were you, I wouldn’t get it into my head that I’m the strongest goblin on the block.”

His anger sparked hotter. Maybe I was going about this wrong. I affected a bright smile and spread my hands out to the side, palms face up.

“Listen, you made a mistake. It happens. Now if you’ll get the ghouls to leave—”

His cackling laugh sent chills racing down my spine. “You still don’t get it. Should I explain it to you?”

“I wish you wouldn’t. I’m feeling a bit peckish.”

He narrowed his eyes, still amused. “I bet you are. My plan worked like a charm. I knew it would because you’re so full of yourself.”

“You remember that old saying, don’t you, Almonester? The one about the pot and the kettle?”

“Except I know myself. You know nothing. No one can control a ghoul without a master. Period. They are ravenous monsters who think of nothing except their next meal.” With this, he cast a contemptuous glance at Georgia. My friend sniffed and ducked her head.

“A goblin thinks of nothing but gold, so how are you different?”

An explosion of sparks and fire erupted from him. I grabbed Georgia and dove to the side, landing on the floor. When I rolled over, it was the find Georgia’s pants leg on fire. I reached to put it out, but she patted it herself. There wasn’t even an expression of pain on her face as she did so, and I looked back at Almonester. His expression said, “I told you so.”

I stood slowly, putting Georgia behind me. “Don’t do that again.”

For show, he raised a ball of magical fire in his palm, and I tensed. However, it seemed he had no intention of hurling it our way. He was trying to intimidate me, and I refused to back down. When Ian, my ex and sire, dropped me off in New Orleans, he told me to stay away from Almonester, to have no dealings with him whatsoever. Never mind the fact that he also arranged for me to live in Almonester’s building. I hadn’t listened.

“It didn’t take much for me to manipulate the ghouls and guide them to where they fed. They want human flesh. I box them in with a wall they can’t break through. I remove it when the timing’s right.” He shrugged.

Almonester had removed the wall when I stood alone before all those ghouls so I would have to fight by myself. He planned it that way, so I would be weaker when I faced him.

“You’re underestimating me, Almonester. I might be a baby vampire, but the hungrier I get, the stronger I am. I am the monster you don’t want to cross.”

His cackle started to grate on my nerves. I thought my claim sounded pretty cool, and who knew if it could be true.

“Experience trumps strength, Rue,” he said. “Remember that. Put it with a clever mind, and you can’t be beat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He snapped his fingers, and I grew cold. Well, colder than usual. His form changed, and he took on the appearance of Lark. I worked my mouth but couldn’t speak. His lips curled in derision.

“If you’re waiting for your boyfriend to come, forget it. Even as strong as he is, one wolf alone isn’t a match for that many ghouls. You thought he was out there with a partner at least when it was me setting him up. Imagine the blow to his ego when he discovers he couldn’t sniff out the enemy standing right beside him. And you, Rue—”

“I never touched you, so the glamour held.” Pretending to be ignorant wasn’t working, so I dropped the act. “But how could you know? Pammie and Orin didn’t remember me. As far as they’re concerned, they never met me. You should be the same.”

Again he tapped his head. Someone had a huge one, very satisfied with his own intellect. This time, though, he meant something different. “I cast a spell on myself many years ago, a strong and binding one that I came across from ancient texts.”

“Ah, the old ancient text trick,” I said drily.

He flared his nostrils. “The spell repels me out of altered timelines when they impact my life.”

I stared in disbelief. “Just how many levels of magic are there in this world?”

He grinned. “Oh so many, so many wonderful things. Unfortunately, I can’t get access to the best kind.”

“Thank goodness.” What he already had was bad enough, not to mention his manipulation of fire.

“When you changed the past, I knew immediately. It was the first time I had it happen to me, and for a while I walked two roads. Everything was double, very disorienting.”

I couldn’t muster sympathy for him.

“I had to continue so I could learn the truth. The good part is I could see where you made sure Pammie and Orin didn’t meet me. I didn’t know all the details of the future, but I knew you did it to stop my plans. The simple solution would be for me to initiate another meeting. After all, the fae are very useful. Then I thought of a better plan. Why not a vampire instead? Much more useful.”

I shook my head, and Georgia cried out, scrambling to her feet. She moved in front of me and spread her arms out to the side. “You can’t have Rue. She’s my friend, and I’m not letting you hurt her.”

“She’s your master,” Almonester hissed. “The only reason you’re not out there mindless with the others is because of her. You know what else? The only reason she’s in here with me is because of you.”

Georgia screamed and covered her ears. I pushed her aside. “Shut your mouth, Almonester!”

“One of your biggest weaknesses, Rue,” Almonester went on as if neither of us had spoken, “is your hero complex. You think you have to save your friends. Instead, you should mind your business. This time, it will cost you.”

I raised my fists and took on a fighting stance. “Not before I kill you, Almonester. I don’t regret one thing. Orin and Pammie needed to be freed. I did it. Nathan might be in a pinch right now, but I trust him. He’ll come out of it.
You
won’t walk out of this building.”