Crimson Night (Night Series Book 1) Page 3

  Darn me and my philanthropic ways. I’d let him go, and this was how he repaid me. Pushing glamour into my hands, I filled my wrists with heat where the rope touched. I’d cut through this thing and then wrap it around his neck, see how he liked it.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he finally said, looking up from the book and slamming it shut. He moved toward me with the careless grace of a jungle cat. Before I could even blink, he was upon me, his heat invading mine, his face hovering inches above me.

  There was anger... and something else, something I had no name for, glittering in those eyes. He placed his hands on either side of my chair and turned me around. I cringed. That rug had cost a small fortune.

  “You tear it, you buy it,” I hissed.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. He wasn’t as young as I’d initially assumed him to be. Up close like this, I could see the lines and wrinkles of age. Earlier I’d assumed him a fresh-faced college grad; now he reminded me much more of the hot college professor all the girls gossiped about.

  He was still wearing the ball cap, and I had a sick feeling I now knew why.

  I’d assumed him human. But no human, even one as strong as a tank, could have gotten through the wards of my trailer, or for that matter masked the fact that he’d been following me.

  My heart thudded...

  “Don’t push me. You’re lucky you’re still alive.” His lip curled. “Nephilim.”

  ...and then it sank to my knees.

  Oh, this was bad.

  He pushed away from me, making the chair rock back from the force of it. The pain in my head and shoulder had become slightly tolerable but now exploded back to life in a rush of stomach-churning queasiness. I squeezed my eyes shut, biting down until I felt my teeth would shatter from the pressure, and counted to ten, waiting for the worst of it to pass before I dared open my eyes again.

  He sat on the love seat, his long, lean frame settling in like someone who’d done this a million times before. Which made me wonder, had he? Just how long had Billy been watching me?

  Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I should have sensed this. Him. How had I wound up in this mess?

  I could always feel the presence of something not quite normal; it was like an irritating buzz below the surface of my skin. But even now, with Billy right in front of me, I felt nothing. The only other time I’d failed to sense the presence of other beings was if they were equal to or greater in strength than me. Which was rare. I was about as high on the totem pole as they come.

  I clenched my jaw. This was not good.

  Again he opened the book, flipped to the middle, and read in silence.

  My heart pounded.

  Billy was Pontifex Mortus—meaning priest of death. The name had stuck to them back sometime during the medieval ages when our scholars spoke mostly Latin. The Pontifex Mortus are to us what a mongoose is to a cobra. B-A-D news.

  Several hundred years after we’d come into being, they’d been born. Their existence consisted of only one thing. Killing us. Aside from angels and high-caste demon lords, we fear nothing so much as them. We aren’t sure how, or by whom, but the Pontifex Mortus—priests, we prefer to call them—have been given the necessary tools to wipe us out. It isn’t easy to kill one of us, but the right knowledge in the wrong hands and we’re goners.

  They’re shadow. Able to blend in. Hide among the general population. And it’s hard to say with any type of certainty what they really are. Humans with extrasensory perception and power, or something more? We don’t know. They have abilities and skills beyond that of mortals, but you can never seem to find anyone who knows for certain. You never bump into a priest more than once since meeting one of them tends to turn you one hundred percent, grade-A dead.

  So then how does the myth remain? How can we know priests exist and that they aren’t our version of the boogeyman? Two reasons. Two things we know that will always remain a constant: (a) You cannot fake that shade of hair. I don’t know who figured out that priests are silver, but any sighting has always confirmed it.

  This is pretty laughable actually since a priest sighting is about as trustworthy as an Elvis sighting. I eyed Billy. Though it didn’t feel so laughable anymore. Proof positive sat slouched on my couch and thumbing his nose at me.

  And (b) Because the sick bastards left the same calling card at each and every scene.

  Revelations 21:8 scribbled onto a sheet of paper and tucked someplace on the body, in the body... and when I say “in,” yes, I mean in. I found a girl two hundred years ago with a yellowed, blood-soaked sheaf of parchment rolled up and tucked inside her aortic valve. Just one of the many creative ways they have to let us know they’re watching.

  And they call us sick. I say it’s the pot calling the kettle black. But what do I know?

  Which was why the carnival had been so perfect. We’d stopped laying roots centuries ago. It was hard to kill what you couldn’t track. That a priest had found us meant we’d made a mistake.

  My stomach turned sour.

  “Take off your hat?”

  He glanced at me, then smiled. It was cold and arrogant and made me want to rip it off, then feed it to Bubba for good measure.

  “Why not. We have nothing to hide between us. Isn’t that right, Pandora?”

  He was taunting me, trying to scare me. And it was working. But that didn’t mean I’d give him the satisfaction of knowing it.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Take it off.”

  He flipped the cap off, unveiling his hair.

  Any lingering hope I’d had died.

  Silver. But this wasn’t the gray of aging humans. This stuff gleamed like poured metal frosted over in a snowy night.

  It was short and shaggy, spiking up at odd angles, and my hands itched to touch it. Blood rushed through my veins so hard and heavy I wondered if he could hear it.

  Why was I still turned on by him?

  Freaking Lust.

  “So, I’m guessing your name’s not Billy.”

  He smiled, his eyes twinkled, and for a split second it transformed him from a brooding Bruce Wayne kind of hot and into Batman. Way more beautiful and twice as deadly. My thighs tingled.

  “And Belle?” What I was going for was righteous anger, what I got was sex-me-up breathy.

  “None of your business,” he snapped.

  “Fine. Then answer my earlier question.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “How long?”

  “How long what?”

  These games were beginning to wear thin. So maybe he’d leveled the playing field now that I knew he was priest, but that didn’t mean I’d let him take me down without a fight.

  “Pretty only gets you so far, Pontifex Mortus.” I poured as much venom into that name as he’d poured into Nephilim.

  His nostrils flared.

  “Obviously you know what I am. You know these ropes won’t hold me worth crap if I don’t want them to.”

  “Is that a threat?” A muscle in his jaw tensed.

  “You’re not the one trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, I am. Do I look threatening?” My smile was pure poison.

  He laughed. Literally threw his head back and gave one of those deep belly chuckles reserved for moments when someone is really tickled. The sound of it tightened things down low, made me squirm. Made me hate him more than I already did.

  Then he went serious. That stern look fixed back in place. It was creepy how quick he could do that. I’d seen others attempt it, but no one had done it with quite the same panache. It was a transformation so fast that it made you question your sanity.

  “Why do you have this?” He waved the book he’d been reading at me like one might brandish a sword.

  “What?” I shook my head. “The Bible?”

  “Yes, the Bible—what’s it doing here?” His mouth set in a firm line, but I heard what he wasn’t asking. What he didn’t say was: What was the Bible doing in the home of a hell spawn?

  “Over sixty percent of households ha
ve one, Priest. Is it a crime?”

  “Yes!” He shot to his feet, murderous rage dripping from his tongue like venom. “You’re a demon.”

  I lifted a brow. “Half. Half demon, Priest. You gonna accuse me of something, get it right.”

  “You”—he pointed at me—“are an abomination. What would you know about light?”

  Wow, insult the demon. How original. If Billy was looking for a reaction from me to justify his actions or to salve his conscience, then he was screwed. I wasn’t taking the bait.

  “Again, I ask you... Why is it here?” His shoulders heaved with his labored breathing.

  Why oh why had I decided to park my trailer so far away from the safety of the pack? All this yelling would have had my demon horde—as I’m sure death god here thought of them—running to my door.

  “Thou believest that there is one God; thou dost well; the devils also believe, and tremble. James 2:19,” I finally said.

  He looked as if I’d slapped him.

  “What I read is my business,” I snapped.

  “Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, thou shall not kill. Matthew 5:21.” His words were steel tempered in black velvet; they shivered down my spine.

  I licked my lips.

  “I saw you kill a man tonight. I saw you kill one in Austin. I saw you kill a girl in Venice.” With each sentence he’d walked a little closer until now his face was back to within inches of mine. Sandalwood wrapped me up in its heady embrace. “Would you like me to go on?”

  His lips were a feather’s touch from mine. Jeez, he had nice lips. The kind you wanted to pull into your mouth and suck on.

  Then it struck me what he’d said. Venice. The last time I’d been in Venice was three months ago. I was suddenly more than just a little scared, and fear always made me angry. I hated weakness. Especially in myself.

  “Don’t you dare judge me! You know nothing about me.” My chest grew tight, breathing became harder. I wanted to smack him and lick him all at the same time. How sick was I?

  He snorted. “Of course I do, Pandora.”

  The sound of my name rolling from his lips made me shiver.

  I narrowed my eyes and could feel the anger turning my normally ice-blue color a frosty, swirling lavender. Anger. Lust. They were both two sides of the same emotion and my demon was feeding off it.

  “Then kill me, Priest. End this. Go ahead.”

  He stepped away from me; it almost appeared involuntary.

  “You know me so well, do you?”

  Again he wore that cold expression I was quickly learning to hate.

  “You arrogant bastard,” I snarled. “You think you’re no different than me? Fool yourself if you want to. Judge me all you want, but you know it’s true. Go ahead, Priest, kill me. And I promise to sit here like a good girl and take it.” I tilted my head to the side, my hair sliding across my breasts. “But this offer is only good for the next minute. So you think about it real good, because I promise you, it will never be this easy again.”

  He stared at me as if I were something unexpected. An oddity he was both repulsed by and curious about.

  “Why did you let us leave earlier?” he asked in a voice so low I almost hadn’t heard him say it.

  “I keep asking myself that same question.” I narrowed my eyes. “What do you think I am, Priest?” I don’t know why I asked that.

  “Evil,” he said without skipping a beat. “You are pure sin.”

  Spoken like a true fanatic. He had no idea. I don’t know why, but it made me sad.

  He was inching closer again. If he kept it up I was gonna show him just how evil I could be.

  “That’s right.” Again, my answer seemed to surprise him. “I am. I kill. I screw indiscriminately. Is that what you want to hear?”

  His mouth contorted with disgust, as if hearing me say it only confirmed I was the monster he thought I was. “I should kill you.”

  Out of nowhere, a knife materialized in his hand. It hovered inches from my neck.

  I pressed my neck into the tip of the blade. The cold steel dug into my flesh and made me tremble. “Then do it now or stop wasting my time.” I looked up at him, and the movement caused the sharp blade to nick me. It was a shallow cut, nothing dangerous, but it did make me bleed. A thin ribbon of crimson pooled on the silver.

  He looked at it, and I could see the tension in the rigidity of his shoulders, the small tic under his right eye. He wanted to do it. So what was stopping him?

  I was taking a very calculated risk here. Did I really want to die? In the past, maybe... but not anymore. I knew who I was. Was secure in myself. My pulse hammered violently in my neck. I didn’t know him, but I also didn’t think he’d do it.

  It was a flicker in his eye. The way his body was so tense, so angry. Like he wanted to but just couldn’t. Over the years I’d developed a few tricks—one was that I could read people, and not just based off body language. It was almost like feeling someone’s thoughts. Tasting their moods. Anger was spicy, lust decadent, fear greasy. Billy tasted like a chili pepper dipped in dark chocolate.

  Very interesting. I licked my lips.

  Seconds seemed like hours. I stared at him, watching the lines of his muscle twitch from the strain of holding himself back. The minute was nearly up, and with each passing second I knew not only wouldn’t he, but he couldn’t.

  Priest could have done it when I was outside with my back turned.

  No, he wanted me alive. Of that I was sure. Why? I had no idea. But I was going to find out.

  He growled, threw the knife away, and walked off. The knife clattered when it hit the kitchen floor. I released the pent-up breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I wasn’t a gambler, but right now I felt like I’d just won the jackpot.

  He was at the door when I asked, “Where are my boots?”

  The cat was out of the bag—he knew who I was, and I knew why he’d taken my shoes off. Every Neph was born with the mark, either on their left or right ankle. Not all marks were similar. Mine was in the shape of a shredded moth’s wing on the inside of my right ankle.

  He’d taken my shoes off to make certain I was Neph.

  Stopping midstride, already halfway out the door, he turned toward me and his lip curled. “See you around, Neph.”

  There was an unspoken promise in that sentence. This would only be the beginning of more. His eyes roamed my face, and I licked my lips at the quiet intensity in that gaze. I’m not sure what happened between us. I couldn’t understand how a Pontifex Mortus, trained to kill Nephs at any and all costs, would choose to walk away from a sacrifice that had looked willing.

  But something had happened, and whatever it was would forever alter the tenuous balance between good and evil.

  Chapter 4

  I was rubbing wrists grown raw from the abrasive scrape of rope when the door opened. I half expected it to be Billy returned with a change of heart and a bigger knife, but instead it was Luc.

  He looked at my wrists, my face, then at my shoulder, which was caked with blood. Luc moved as only a demon could. It wasn’t a walk, but a thought. He wanted to be near me, and from one second to the next, he was.

  Kneeling, he drew my wrists into his warm hands and turned them over to expose the angry red abrasions marring the milky white of my skin. His shoulders grew tense and his breathing heavy. “Who did this?”

  I licked my lips.

  Luc watched me like a wolf stalking its prey. He’d turned down his glamour, sensitive to the fact that changing would have been too painful for me right now. He sniffed the air, then a rumble similar to the guttural growl of a panther readying itself to strike vibrated through his chest. His eyes narrowed. He pushed the hair away from my face none too gently and jerked me by the chin so that I faced light.

  “Who did this to you, Ya-el?” A flicker of apprehension skated down my spine like black ice as I watched his eyes turn from blue to molten lavender. Thankfully, he wasn’t in the mood for sex. Tur
ning now would have hurt like a mother.

  “Pontifex Mortus,” I whispered.

  He vanished in a plume of black smoke, leaving in his wake the faint scent of sulfur.

  My head, my shoulders, wrists, ankles... it all hurt. It was beginning to ache so bad now that it was making me sick. My head swam from the blood loss, but I had to clean myself up. I still smelled that vampire all over me. I stood, and for a second the world swayed.

  There was no way I could even walk the short distance to my bathroom without emptying the contents of my stomach. Swallowing down the bile, I pushed through the pain and dematerialized.

  Typically dematerializing feels like fading into a cold, wet mist. It’s painless, seamless. Like slipping into the velvet warm heat of bathwater. Every part of your body breaking down into its basic form, free-floating atoms made up of excited protons, electrons, neutrons and a pulsating nucleus. Energy in its purest form and multiplied by about a trillion.

  But tonight it was neither painless nor seamless. The second I misted I knew I shouldn’t have. I’d have screamed if I had lungs and a mouth to do it with.

  It took me longer than normal to reform. If I didn’t do it right, if I didn’t grab every part of me that had misted, I’d forever be less than. Not a shade and not fully corporeal. Just... less than.

  Taking deep breaths, I focused around the nauseating pain throbbing at my temple until I’d gathered the last bit of myself. The final atom slid into me with the happy warmth of a devoted puppy.

  I gripped the sink with knuckles turning white from the strain of trying to hold myself upright. Sweat beaded across my brows. Black hollows added shadows to my eyes. My skin, already porcelain fair, was now so pale that I could make out the small blue and green veins in my cheeks. Saying I looked bad was probably the understatement of the year.

  “Friggin’ death priests,” I grumbled beneath my breath.

  Quickly I turned on the faucet. Warm tendrils of steam fogged the bottom half of the mirror.

  I wet a rag and cleaned myself up the best I could. The water was scalding, and I hissed when the heat touched my wound. Standing was making everything worse. The headache was awful, like someone had taken a cleaver to my skull. I blinked, seeing stars swim before my eyes. The walls bulged, then sank in. The floor rocked beneath my feet, and I groaned, feeling as if I was trapped in a house of horrors.