Sloane Briallen

We didn’t have a good track record with the police. I was busted for stealing a car a few times. Mikko got busted on a drug raid. Annie was detained for being black more than once. Genie and Frankie were usually arrested together, normally petty theft since they were the best pickpockets of us. That didn’t include the times we were rounded up by the police and put back in foster for being runaways.

I was the only one who had never been hit or shoved so hard into a car that I had bruises. My skin was pale with obvious European traits.

The others were not so lucky.

The last time I remembered Frankie got arrested, he got a concussion. Another time, Genie had been forced to sit in an interrogation room for three hours with no interpreter because the cops couldn’t figure out where to put her.

All of this is to say, it was easy for me to focus on worrying about finding Genie and Frankie instead of anything else. I didn’t have to deal with Mickey and Bell being back. Or alive. Or here. I didn’t have to deal with Mikko still being missing. Or that I wasn’t looking for him because I was afraid of what I would find.

Genie and Frankie had the police after them. I could get to them first. I wouldn’t be able to hide them or take them away. That would just compound the problem. But I could at least get them to foster, with a social worker, who could handle them and the police together. The foster system sucked, but in my experience, they had never let any of us go in front of the police alone. They actually gave a little bit of a damn about how kids were treated by the cops.

I was optimistic I got a call from Mira.

I opened the phone, glancing to make sure it was her. “Hey,” I said.

“I called some people, asked around about Frankie and Genie. Just got a call back that someone saw them get busted downtown. They ran away, but the cops were after them. I haven’t heard if they got caught, but I’m assuming they did.”

“Fantastic,” I sighed, my heart dropping. “Where downtown?”

“Not too far from where they’re building the light rail station.”

“Do we know if it’s sheriff or police?”

“No. Isn’t it usually police?”

“I got picked up by the sheriff once.” I growled in frustration. “Alright. I’ll ask around.” I hung up.

Mira lived in the South Mountain Village area, about fifteen minutes south of Downtown Phoenix. I was south of Mira’s house, searching further through South Mountain for Frankie and Genie. I hadn’t expected them to leave the area. South Mountain was Phoenix’s poorest neighborhood where we’d spent most of our lives. Generations lived and died here.

I got back in my car and headed north. It took me almost forty-five minutes with traffic and then the fucking parking. Parking downtown in any city was a nightmare, but Phoenix was worse than most.

The new light rail was supposed to open soon, December 2008, according to the signs all over the chain link fence surrounding the construction. New construction meant detours and congestion, both in foot traffic and cars. It didn’t take long to find my target.

A homeless man sat under an awning against the wall of a building that had a big “For Lease” sign on it. The foot traffic was pretty heavy, with people passing him in groups. He had a cup next to him and was holding it out to anyone who walked close, asking for spare change.

I thought he was in his forties or fifties maybe, but it was hard to tell. Food scarcity, sun, and homelessness wore anyone away. He could have been thirty. He was skinny and wore a pile of clothes, even in the seventy-five-degree weather. His skin reminded me of the reddish brown of weathered rocks in the desert.

He held out his paper Pepsi cup when I walked over. “Can you spare any change, ma’am?” His voice was gravelly.

I crouched down next to him and tucked a twenty into his cup. “I can. Can I ask you a question?”

His eyes went wide, looking in his cup. “Oh, bless you, ma’am. Thank you thank you.” He looked up at me, registering what I had said. “Question?”

“Yeah. Did you see the police here, chasing after two teenagers? The kids got arrested?”

His brow crinkled. “Two kids . . .” he shook his head. “I seen a commotion over across where they’re building the light rail. Saw police lights.” He pointed through the construction. “I think Marnie’s over there, they mighta seen something.”

“Did you see if it was sheriff or police?”

He shook his head. “No, sorry, ma’am. I don’t see too good nowadays.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eric, ma’am.”

“Well, thank you, Eric.” I stuck another twenty in his cup and stood up.

“Ma’am, you’re too generous,” he whispered, staring into his cup. “Thank you.”

I smiled, dipping my head to him before heading off for across the street.

The person that Eric had told me about was about a half a block down from where he had said the police cars were. They were much closer to my age with short brown hair and sharp collarbones. They were digging through the trash outside of a McDonald’s when I found them. I saw bruises and track marks on their arms.

“Marnie?” I asked as I walked up.

They didn’t give me a second look, continuing to dig through the trash as people gave them a wide berth.

“Marnie?” I tried again, stepping closer.

Still nothing. Now people were giving me a wide berth.

“Hey!” I shouted.

They looked up then.

“Are you Marnie?”

They looked to the side quickly, eyes darting around. “Why?”

“Eric said you could help me.”

They blinked several times. “Eric? Like Eric over there?” they pointed vaguely where Eric was.

I nodded.

“Why’s Eric talking to a vampire?” they asked, scratching at their arm.

I hadn’t expected that question, but I also wasn’t completely surprised. Homeless people were more attuned to magic than the rest of the world. They tended to see it a lot more.

“I’m just looking for some friends,” I said. “Did you see two kids get arrested here earlier?”

Their eye twitched. “Two kids? Mmmm, yes. Yes. Two kids. A Mexican and a Indian.” They blinked three times in rapid succession.

“Was it the sheriff or the police?”

They blinked a few times before saying. “Mmmm white car with blue stripes. Police, n-not sheriff. Police for sure.”

“Thanks,” I said. I pulled out forty dollars and handed it to them. “Here.”

They blinked, looking from the money to me and back to the money. “F-forty dollars?”

I handed them a third twenty. “And here. Get something to eat for you and Eric. Okay?”

They glanced from the money to me and then at the McDonald’s. They nodded then and snatched the money from me before scurrying into McDonald’s.

I stood outside, idly watching Marnie go up to the counter before stepping away from the window. I didn’t want them to think I was policing how they used their money. As long as Marnie got Eric food, if my forty dollars went in their arm, it wasn’t my business. I remembered all too well what it was like to be homeless. I had smoked a bit of weed and done some coke in my day, but my addiction had always been cigarettes. If it brought peace, it was worth it.

When Marnie left, giving me a quick hurried nod, I started down the street. I tried to remember where the closest police department was in relation to where I stood.

But once I did remember, I realized I still had no plan. As a vampire, I could maybe take on some cops, but an entire precinct? To what? Reclaim Genie and Frankie?

They needed to get out legally, and I needed a plan.

“What the fuck?”

That voice made the blood freeze in my veins.

I looked up to see Lunette. And she looked furious. Her russet eyes burned with crimson flames as she came towards me.

My eyes almost popped out of my head. “Oh fuck.”

I bolted.

Weaving through the crowd, I tried my best not to hurtle through and hurt anyone. And that was my downfall.

Something grabbed my legs, and I went down, almost landing in the street. My head cracked against a parking meter, and I yelped in pain, grabbing my skull. A shadow blocked out the sun.

I looked up, my eyes watering.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lunette growled.

Dizziness threatened to overtake me, and I closed my eyes. “Sightseeing.”

“Do you know how much fucking trouble you’ve caused with your little disappearing act?”

The dizziness passed, and I finally stood up. I could feel the bump where it strained against my ponytail. “Ask me if I care,” I replied, checking around to see if I had an easy out. I did not. Too many people and cars. And once again, I was getting a wide berth and stares from pedestrians.

In a blur of motion, Lunette had my shirt in her hands and was as close as her little five-one head could get to my six-one head. “Ilona is here. And she is demanding your presence. And she’s punishing him because he can’t fucking find you.” She bared her teeth at me, her canines elongating just enough to make her point.

“Then he shouldn’t have turned me,” I snarled back, smacking her hand away. I turned from her. “I’m sure he’s self-medicating anyway.”

“What?”

I waved her off, walking away.

She was in front of me so fast that I would have run into her if she hadn’t shoved me before I could. It made my head spin. Did I have a concussion?

“What do you mean ‘self-medicating’?” she demanded. “Do you know where he is?”

I paused. Did . . . she not know? “What?”

“He told me he was going to take a nap but when I went to check in on him, he wasn’t in his hotel room. I can’t find him anywhere, and he isn’t answering his phone.”

That gave me an idea.

This was gonna suck.

“You said Ilona is here? And has been punishing him for my disappearance?”

Her glare lightened into a scowl. “Yes.”

“Yeah, I know where he probably is.”

“Where?”

“I will only help you if you two help me.”

“Fuck you, fledgling. You owe us.” She took a step forward until she was almost touching me.

“I don’t owe you jack fucking shit, Lunette.” I took a step back, pushing her shoulder as I did. “I did not ask to be turned by the child of one of the scariest vampires on the face of the earth. I did not agree to be part of this family. So, if you want my help, you’ll have to help me.”

She glared at me.

I shrugged, turning from her. As I did, the dizziness finally resolved itself. Concussion healed, I guess.

“Fine.”

Oh, thank the gods. I hadn’t had a clue if my bluff would hold. Plus, her powers were scary, and she could probably force me.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Madame Bovary kept her “shop” in a house at the South Mountain Park foothills. It was an older Tudor style house with tall gables and small windows at the gable peaks. But instead of the normal white with dark wood beams on the exterior, the house was built from red brick. It towered over us, three stories tall, with an imposing, dark entryway.

The entry hall was beautiful with orange and red tile on the floor, the walls with half-exposed bricks on the bottom. A table off to the side had a terrarium filled with flowering cacti and a crystal chandelier hung from above. In front of us was a wide staircase leading up to the second story. The air smelled like the desert right after it rained. The room was empty, the lone hostess stand in front of us unmanned.

There was a commotion. I could hear an argument going on upstairs, but it was muffled by soundproofing. Madame Bovary’s primary clientele was vampires, and they didn’t want to be able to hear each other when they came here.

An arch opened to our right into a living room filled with lush furniture. On our left was another arch into a room with a full bar and a jazz stand. The rooms were empty and dark.

A woman in a black silk cocktail dress with blue hair and black and grey tattoos covering her arms appeared from a hallway at the top of the stairs and hurried down. “I’m sorry, we’re not accepting any customers right now due to an emergency.” She was human, and I could hear her heart beating a mile a minute.

I recognized her. “Tara?”

She paused on the stairs for a second, taking a moment to actually focus on me. I saw the recognition dawn in her dark eyes. “Sloane!” She hurried down the stairs and hugged me. “Oh, my God. It’s been years.”

“It has,” I said, hugging her back. “Nice to see you off the street and doing something swanky. Landing at Madame Bovary’s, hot damn.”

She beamed. “Jackie started college. I gotta make sure she gets through.”

“Oh right. How—”

“Lovely that you two are having a reunion, but can we focus on why we’re here?” Lunette snarled, grabbing my shoulder.

I rolled her off, looking at Tara, who was finally giving me a real once over.

“Vampire?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Long story. Could the emergency you mentioned have to do anything with a male vampire with ear plugs, a tongue piercing, and a huge back tattoo?”

Her blue eyebrows rose in surprise. “Do you know him?”

“He belongs to us,” I said. “What drug? Heroin?” I was pretty sure that was Karhi’s drug of choice.

I heard a noise of surprise from Lunette that I was definitely not supposed to hear. When I glanced at her, she glared at me.

“Yeah,” Tara answered, glancing up the stairs.

“Is his date okay?”

She nodded. “They’re fine. It’s just—the guy barricaded the room and won’t come out unless someone brings him more. He just showed up two hours ago, dropped fifteen grand, and took Julio and Ignacio with him.”

“He hasn’t hurt anyone, right?”

“No, no. He’s being loud and aggressive, but just talking shit. He hasn’t laid a hand on anyone.”

That sounded right. “We’ll take care of him.” I glanced at Lunette before saying, “She’ll take care of any damage he caused.”

“Wait, what—” Lunette started but I was already following Tara up the stairs.

“I mean, sure,” Tara said as we went up. “But two guys are already here for him. Said he had paid them to pick him up when he was done.”

Lunette cursed and darted past me before I could reply.

I bolted after her, earning a surprised yelp from Tara as I left her behind me.

Lunette led me to a white door with painted clematis. A group of people in various states of undress milled around the door. Two naked men—Julio and Ignacio I presumed by the bite marks on their biceps—stood next to each other, talking quietly. An older woman in her fifties wore a silk robe angrily talking to another woman. That was Madame Bovary most likely.

But what really caught my attention were the two burly shifters in front of the door, one’s fist through the wood, splinters on the floor. I felt like that wasn’t a good thing, especially judging by how alarmed Lunette had been.

Lunette grabbed the one whose fist wasn’t in the door and hauled him back by his shoulder, punching him in the face. He roared out in pain and the humans scattered, shouting in surprise.

I was willing to trust Lunette’s judgment on this matter. This was only my third time seeing Karhi after a night of smack, but he had never had anyone pick him up before. I didn’t think he’d have strange shifters doing it, either.

I turned my hip to the one whose hand was in the door and brought my heel down on the back of his knee, forcing him down. He shouted out in pain and started to turn to me, but I was already smashing my elbow into the side of his head.

He slammed into the ground, his skull shattering the tile floor. He didn’t get back up.

Lunette shouted and I turned to see that her shifter had transformed into a large tabby cat. His face was lopsided from the punch Lunette had leveled at him—shifting must have fucking sucked. Transforming with broken bones could rebreak healing bones.

The tabby bolted past me and when I looked, I saw the guy I had hit had also transformed into a cat, a black house cat. He fled, too.

Lunette lunged after them, but I caught her, almost breaking my arm in the process. “Sloane,” she hissed, red-brown eyes flashing a bright vermilion.

I shoved her back. “We need to get Karhi out. Not go after whoever the hell those people were.”

A female voice boomed through the room. “Yes! Please, get out of my house, all of you!”

I looked up to see Madame Bovary coming towards us, arms open wide in frustration. I had never met the woman before, but she had been on the scene for a long time. I could see why—the grey hair and the busty figure gave her an older, mature look.

“You,” she said, pointing to me. “I’m always happy to meet a friend of Tara’s, but not. Like. This. Get him out and get you out. I don’t want any more trouble in my establishment—you are running out my clients!”

“She’ll pay you,” I said, pointing at Lunette. “She’s fucking loaded.”

The 180 was tangible, anger on Madame Bovary’s face immediately transforming into a smile. She turned to look at Lunette, a predatory glint in her eyes. “Oh?”

Lunette looked at me. “Sloane, like hell—”

“You’re like a multi-millionaire—you won’t notice a hundred or two hundred grand in renovations,” I shrugged. I turned from her and went over to the door. I hadn’t heard Karhi in there at all through the ruckus.

“Karhi?” I asked the door. “It’s me, Sloane.”

I didn’t hear anything for a moment. Wait, was he even here? I swear to God, if he had somehow left during all that—

“Sloane?”

Oh. He was in there. “Yeah. Can you open the door?”

“Are those men gone?”

“They are. Can you let me in?”

“Do you have heroin?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

Lunette shoved me aside before I could say anything. “Karhi, if you don’t open this door, I will break it down and drag you out of here.”

“Lunette?”

“Yes, you fucker. Get the hell out of there and come back with us.”

“You’re working with Sloane?”

Lunette glared at me before quietly growling, “Yes.”

“Now that’s something I have to see.” I heard something screech behind the door, like heavy furniture, and the door opened.

Karhi had on boxers and one sock, but that was it on the clothing front. I could see the edges of his tattoo along the tops of his shoulder and at his sides.

His pupils were blown, the black swallowing up the grey. He was coming off the high, then.

He stared at me. “You really are here . . .”

“I am,” I said. “Come on, let’s get you dressed.”

“Clothes are uncomfortable,” he scowled. He swayed where he stood.

“Then at least let’s get your shoes on.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face to the ceiling. He stayed like that for a moment in contemplation before saying, “Okay.”

It would have taken more coaxing to get Karhi out if Lunette hadn’t finally gotten fed-up and picked him up and hauled him back to her car. I collected his clothes from the room he had trashed and left. Lunette left her card with Madame Bovary to deal with any destruction Karhi had caused.

We drove back to the hotel in silence. There was an elevator directly from the parking garage into the hotel and we got Karhi back to Lunette’s room without him scandalizing anyone.

It took me another ten minutes to talk him into bed until he finally settled. As I was leaving, I went to turn the light off. I caught myself just as Karhi said, “Wait.”

I looked back at him, nodding. “I know. Don’t turn the light out.”

He eyed me before rolling over.

Lunette’s hotel room had a living room and a minibar in the corner. She sat on a small loveseat across from a mounted TV. There was a small table in front of the loveseat with a glass of blood on it. Her gaze was on the table, her head miles away.

I really needed something to drink.

“Do you have more blood?” I asked.

She nodded to the minibar without looking up from her staring contest with the table.

I pulled out a glass bottle of blood from inside the minibar. It was like Mexican Coke, except, Mexican Blood? Who thought a glass bottle was necessary?

Whatever. I twisted the top off and raised the bottle to my lips.

Almost before I knew what I was doing, I was guzzling it. I hadn’t had anything to drink in almost three days. I’d been too busy trying to patch my family back together.

At least this time I’d caught myself before I had to ask someone to open a vein. That would not have gone over well.

I finished the bottle and grabbed another one. It took that plus one more to finally feel like I was done. The tension and anxiety I had felt was finally ebbing.

Being full on blood wasn’t the same as being full on food. It was more like an itchiness in my muscles eased. I had found that I tended to ignore the thirst because it wasn’t so much like a parched feeling in my throat. It was like the aftermath of adrenaline. And having spent most of my life dealing with the aftermath of adrenaline, I had learned to ignore it.

“He does heroin?”

Lunette’s question was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear it. When I looked at her, her eyes were still on the table.

“Is . . . it a secret?” I asked. Lunette hadn’t really said anything during the whole time at Madame Bovary’s. She had seemed surprised, but I hadn’t been sure why. The heroin? Madame Bovary’s? Me?

She finally looked up at me. “He never told me.”

Yikes. “Uh . . . yeah. He tends to do it after a really rough night with Ilona. He came home twice in the cities high as fuck after she came through. He woke me up both times and slept in my bed with me because he was too afraid of the dark in his room.”

At her stare, I immediately regretted what I said. “Uh . . . forget I said that.”

She looked down again. “Afraid of the dark . . . ?”

Well, I had already said it out loud. “Yeah. I always assumed it was because of what Ilona did to you when she first turned you. I’ve heard she’s a big fan of sensory deprivation in those first few months.”

“How did you know where to find him?” She sounded uncertain, something I had never heard from her before.

I shrugged one shoulder. “I grew up in Phoenix. I was a foster kid, and I didn’t stay with my families for very long. I did anything to make money.”

Her brow furrowed. “Were you a prostitute?”

I shook my head. “No, I would sell drugs. But I knew a lot of sex workers. And I knew about Madame Bovary. She sells sex and drugs to vampires.”

“How does that even work?” she asked. “Drugs don’t work on vampires.”

I tilted my head at her. “Who told you that?”

She blinked, staring at me. Then her face contorted from confusion to anger at my apparently dumb question. “Our blood breaks down opioids, Sloane.”

“If you inject it directly. Not so much if a human injects, and you immediately drink their blood from the nearby veins.”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

“I was never really sure how he found it in the Twin Cities because they don’t have the sort of sex-and-drugs vampire scene like Phoenix does, but you can always find someone willing to do something for the right price.” I rubbed my eyes. Exhaustion was beginning to hit me, too. It was almost enough to dull my curiosity, but not quite. “Who were those shifters?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He told me that this morning, he woke up in an unknown house, and someone had drugged him with dead man’s blood. I’m assuming it’s related to that.”

I was surprised, but the exhaustion was making it hard to feel it. It was more serious interest than shock. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” she said. She glanced at me. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“Minnesota.”

“You should get some sleep, too.”

I peered at her, tilting my head in confusion. “Lunette . . . why do you give a shit about me?”

She bristled. “I don’t. But if I have to do something for you when he wakes up, you might as well not be fucking useless when we do it.”

Right. Frankie and Genie. I had been doing this for them. The exhaustion was beginning to take my memory.

“You’re good at finding information, right?” I asked.

She nodded, her expression guarded.

“Can you find out where Frank Cirocco and Jean Carwyn were taken when they were arrested by Phoenix PD earlier today? They’re fifteen.”

I expected pushback at first, but Lunette pulled a laptop out from under the coffee table. “Who are they?” She opened the laptop.

“The kids I need your help busting out of jail when Karhi is awake again.”

Her gaze on me wasn’t a scowl like it usually was, but it was still clearly annoyed by my answer. After a moment, she shook her head and said, “I’ll find them. Go the fuck to sleep.”

I headed back into Lunette’s room and crawled into bed next to Karhi. I never had to worry about him being weird sleeping in a bed next to me. I would never tell him, but the times he’d slept in my bed in the past—I had never felt safer around a man I hadn’t grown up with.