Taint of Shadow Read online

  “A few weeks. Since just after I saw you at Peter and Regina’s place.” He glanced sidelong at the other captives. “They had a couple already by then.”

  The way he said it, the look in his eyes, disturbed her. But now wasn’t the time or place to talk about it. “Where did they grab you from?”

  “Backwoods Idaho. I took a road trip.”

  Not far away, but far enough. “Why were you out there?”

  Raw emotion sat behind his gaze. Windows into his soul, just like the adage went, and by the display, his spirit still bled. “Looking for answers.”

  “What was the question?” Her voice was gentle.

  “Wish I knew.”

  Now it sat there. The next logical question. She didn’t want to ask. Superstition nagged at her. If she asked, the words would make the situation real, the consequences possible. If she acknowledged it, gave it substance, then the pack wouldn’t find them. They’d stay here, tortured by the lunar tides, held by the dead until the biters went through with whatever plan they had.

  She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. “Why do they have us?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. The chain between his cuffs rattled. “I don’t know. They’ve said they need seven a few times, but I’m not sure why.”

  “I heard them say that, too.” Tonight she is our dear number seven. A ball of lead settled into her stomach. A convenient fate for an inconvenient woman. She’d given them what they needed. I should have just gone with Noah. Then I’d be with him, we could be married...

  And the vampires would have taken another werewolf, maybe a member of the pack. It was hard to wish she’d taken different actions. It would have meant she’d condemned someone else to the uncertain fate she faced.

  “Seven’s never been my lucky number.” Derek’s voice distracted her. A low growl of an undertone rumbled beneath the words.

  She looked up. The moon rapidly approached the zenith. They had half an hour at the most before the change was uncontrollable, and the curse of the wolf would live up to its name.

  Fear spiked through her, and her nostrils flared. All around her, eyes had turned to gold. The scent of something primal hovered in the air. She had diverted it, but now it rushed back in full force. On her wrists, the cuffs tightened.

  Reckless energy made her bold. “What are you going to do with us?” she demanded.

  “Dog show. Like on the telly,” Mason said with a sneer. “We’ll tie the bow around your neck real tight and see how many times you can run around the ring before you pass out.”

  “You talk too much.” Paul’s smooth voice cut through the sniggering of the twins. He stepped out of the trees and stood before the prisoners. “Go and retrieve the items from the cache. Be quick. I have to draw the circle.”

  The vampire unrolled the sleeves of his pressed shirt, then rolled them again more neatly as the twin biters scurried off into the forest. “Their manners are unfortunate, but they’re very useful,” Paul told her. “And they do have a certain old-world charm. They remind me of the London of my youth.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Do you know what I liked best about those days, Miss Schinn?” He took a paper out of his pocket. “Go on. Have a guess.”

  “The food?”

  He laughed as he retrieved an old, metal coffee pot from behind a nearby rock. “Partially correct. You see, that was when my kind knew their place.” When he smiled, she could see his fangs, sharp and perfectly white. “On the night my sire made me, he took me up to the top of the Tower of London, and he told me to look around. ‘This is yours,’ he said. ‘Every soul within it lives at your discretion.’ Back then, I did not appreciate his words as I should have. I have since come to a greater understanding.”

  Uncomfortable beneath his gaze, knees sore from the stone, she shifted position.

  “That is the way of us all, my dear. We do not appreciate what we have until we have learned to savor it. So it was with me and vampirism. Now, surely you will think this very cliché, very Bram Stoker indeed, but we have conquered death.” He shrugged, as if it were no more than a win at cards. “The last, true plague of humanity, and my kind has beaten it. We have come out of that victory with unrivalled strength, speed, agility. We are superior.”

  “You still have a problem with sunlight,” she spat at him. Reckless, reckless. The wolf wouldn’t wait much longer.

  He inclined his head. “I concede the point. But in all other things, we remain the cream floating atop a vat of milk, if you like the analogy. Many of us have forgotten that. Pirelli’s very short-sighted loyals, for example. Others of us have not. And it is high time that all of us remember.”

  She could hear Mason and Miles chattering at a distance but coming closer. “So you’ll start a war?”

  “There has always been a war. Some misguided souls have simply forced a very unnatural peace. Tell me, have you never wanted to purge the lot of us from your city?”

  “Of course.”

  He nodded. “For my part, I have always maintained a healthy respect for werewolves. Beasts, yes, but capable of an excellent fight. Very commendable in your devotion to your simplistic beliefs. A little refinement, and you would be worth the effort of taming you. And that is what this is all about, Miss Schinn. A tempering in the refiner’s fire.”

  “That sounds like a lot of crap.”

  “Does it?” He rapped the metal pot against his hand. Little puffs of chalk escaped the spout as he disturbed the material within. “I suppose it is a bit grandiosely stated. True, I assure you, but also incomplete. For all I have lofty goals in mind with tonight’s main attraction, starting a war has a measure of convenience for me. Lord Pirelli has ruled this city for too long. Yet he does have an unfortunate number of supporters. Why do all that work myself?”

  Kayla understood. “You’re starting a war so the werewolves will kill the vampires for you.”

  “Not quite.” Pirelli smiled an unpleasant, fanged smile. “I am starting a war so the werewolves and vampires will kill each other. It’s what they’re best at, isn’t it? Then I can sweep through with a dustbin to discard the remains. I will have control over the vampires, and a loyal pack to install in place of yours to give me complete dominion over the city. Very efficient, really. Your alpha wolf has proved resistant to the temptation towards war, but tonight ought to prove a powerful instigation. With Regina’s voice behind it, naturally. Destabilization from within is a very effective tactic.”

  Kiplinger wanted to force the werewolves into breaking the truce, and he intended to use her to do it. She could already anticipate the loudest voice in the howl for violence. Noah, please, don’t fall for this. Don’t give him what he wants. Not in my name. Don’t make me what turns Tacoma into a war zone again.

  The twins grunted their way into the area, a long, wooden box carried between them. “Oi, where you want this?”

  “Set it off to the side.” Paul glanced around. “Where is everyone else? We’re on a rather tight schedule here, and we cannot start without the rest.”

  The twins set down the box. From within, she could hear the rattle of ceramic items as they clattered against each other. “Why do we need all three of them?”

  “Four quarters must be covered, so we have a balance in energy to flow into the center. Thus, two wolves and two vampires.” He gave the coffee pot in his hand a solid whack, then bent down to pour its contents onto the ground. A white, chalky powder sifted out to form a line on the ground.

  The pair exchanged looks. “With the two of us, wouldn’t there be five, then?”

  Paul gave a long-suffering sigh as he began to trace a pattern from his paper onto the rock. “You two count as one. You’re twins. If it were just one of you, it’d be a half, now, wouldn’t it?”

  “Ohh.” In unison, they nodded. At any other time, Kayla might have found it funny.

  Kiplinger pinched the bridge of his nose. “You see what I have to work with, Miss Schinn. Werewolves would be a r
efreshing step up.”

  “It could be argued you did this to yourself.”

  “It could, but Lord Pirelli’s prohibitions on my methods do leave me short quality assistance.” He backed around in a broad circle that surrounded those gathered. “We cannot always choose those with whom we must work. I make do, but I complain bitterly. Call me ungrateful.”

  “Not the word I’d use to describe you.”

  “Tsk, tsk. Such rancor. You should be honored to be part of this grand experiment. Unless it does not work. Should that happen, I give you express permission to complain as bitterly as I do.”

  A short scream split the air, followed by a sharp slap. Regina entered the clearing, dragging a woman bound with rope. “The pack took longer to lead off than I thought they would. I’m sorry,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Peter’s a noble asshole and wanted to make sure I was all right.”

  Paul had done a good job with the marks he had made on her. They were artful wounds, intended to look fierce in the moonlight but cause a minimum of damage. And she would wear them for weeks. Lycanthropic healing wouldn’t touch magical injuries, such as those made by a vampire.

  I hope they infect and rot off her face, Kayla thought venomously.

  “Where did you lead them?” Paul tested the rope around the captive woman. It wrapped under her breasts, over her arms, and looped around her wrists, savagely tightened to bite into her skin.

  “North. They’re heading away from us. I told them I thought you’d be heading back toward the city.” A smug, self-satisfied sneer distorted Regina’s lips, made uglier by the scratches Paul had left along her face and neck. “They’re so worried about her. Noah just about turned himself inside out. Didn’t he, Todd?”

  Sick. Kayla felt sick, nauseous with dread, worry, and lycanthropic energy. Todd, Noah’s best friend, almost his brother, stepped out onto the stone platform.

  Oh no. They got him, too.

  “He loves her.” Something was wrong with his voice. It was flat, quiet, unhappy, but not panicked. He had no ropes, no cuffs, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Yes, well, he’s an idiot.” Regina dismissed the comment with a wave of her hand. “By next week, he’ll be humping another bitch in the pack.”

  Kayla made herself breathe. “Todd?”

  He met her eyes for an instant then looked away once more, but she’d already seen the shame in him. All emotion emptied out of her but the cold, sour twist of betrayal in her gut. No, they hadn’t caught him or forced him here. He’d come of his own accord.

  Before she could say more, another man stumbled up the slope. Kayla could see why he had trouble with the uneven ground. His clothes might have come out of a grab bag from a charity store, but he wore expensive designer tennis shoes meant more for looks than for traction. Only those, and the shiny gold-and-diamond ghost pendant that hung over his ratty T-shirt, gave any indication of his real status.

  A celebrity. The golden child of the local club scene. Kayla wanted to tear his face from his skull. DJ Specter had played the raves where Paul Kiplinger had stolen blood from unwilling partiers. Fans called him a genius. Edgy fringe denizens whispered that he might be a vampire, a real vampire, and wanted the chance to get close to him. Specter’s notoriety had attracted victims to the worst concerts of their lives.

  “I know, I know, I’m late. I thought there would be a trail or something. Signs.” He waved a dismissive hand at the slope he’d just climbed. “Maybe a lift. Whatever. I’m here. I could be playing a show back in fucking civilization, but I’m here.”

  Regina glanced between the turntable rat and her lover. “Did we really have to use him?”

  “We really did. Be careful not to smudge my ritual circle.” Paul looked like he’d swallowed an insect who’d wiggled all the way down. “Specter, you asked to be part of this, remember?”

  “Yeah, before I knew you were doing it in the middle of fucking nowhere on a mountain. Aren’t rituals supposed to be in dungeons and shit?”

  “Not this one. I was expressly told to have it on Rainier. Can we please get started?” Paul sounded impatient as he put down his chalk dispenser pot. “We haven’t any more time to dally. Miles, Mason, arrange our guests while I sort the jars. If the participants will please take their places, one each at the cardinal compass points.”

  Even as they hauled her to the center of the rock, she couldn’t tear her gaze from Todd. Just last week, he’d come to their apartment for dinner. He’d brought a six pack of beer and some brownies. They’d served him bratwurst. After dinner, they’d all talked about hopes for the future over a friendly game of gin rummy. Funny. He never mentioned “work with assholes who kidnapped his best friend’s mate” as part of his goals for the future.

  They’d never guessed he was in league with vampires. Todd had grown up in Tacoma’s scary, bloody past, before Peter had brought the supernatural wars to heel. From what Kayla knew, Todd had lost friends and family to the conflicts between barker and biter. She and Noah would not have thought about Todd turning coat, not ever. Loyal to the pack, to his own blood, to Noah. She didn’t understand.

  The vampires arranged the werewolves into a tight circle at the center of the stone, still on their knees under a moon that had nearly reached its height. Paul took large ceramic jars out of the box and set them in front of his cronies one at a time. Kayla’s skin prickled, and her hair stood on end as he set one down near her.

  They reminded her of canopic jars, the containers the ancient Egyptians had used to hold a mummy’s internal organs, though without the sons of Horus on the lids. Whatever entity’s horrid visage shaped the ceramic on the jars’ tops, Kayla didn’t think it intended to gently guide a soul to the afterlife. Spidery runes in a language she couldn’t identify twisted over the surface of each jar, stained dark by a rough glaze. She hoped it was glaze, at least. The color resembled dried blood too closely for her to banish the thought that those carved runes had taken their color from a dying victim’s vital fluids.

  Her stomach rolled. They smelled of spoiled blood, rotten meat. Her human side wanted to gag. Malign energy poured off them with such power that Kayla wanted both to run as far from them as she could, and to destroy them so they wouldn’t blight the world with their existence.

  The wolf within growled.

  “Are you sure we weren’t supposed to make all four sacrifices tonight during the ritual?” Regina asked, as she gave the sobbing human woman an idle kick.

  Kiplinger spread his hands. “I was told we needed four sacrifices. I was not told they required specific timing, but for this last one. Controlling four sniveling victims on a werewolf-infested mountain did not appeal to me, so I made an executive decision.”

  “You didn’t call for clarification?” Regina raised an eyebrow.

  “No. I speak to my benefactor as little as possible. Either way, it’s too late now, so let’s work with what we have. It should be fine, I imagine. Three of the jars have their donations already. We’ll make the fourth sacrifice and perform the little ceremony.” His shirt sleeves had slipped down. He rolled them up again in precise, impatient folds. “My God, this is all so tedious. I will be very glad to get out of the ritual magic game.”

  “Do you want me to do it, Paul?” Regina sounded too eager.

  The twins stood behind Derek, positioned across from Kayla in the circle. “Hoo, girl-on-girl action!”

  Kiplinger stared at them. He walked out of Kayla’s view before he spoke, around behind her where she could only hear him. “I hope whomever gave the pair of you immortality has died a very painful and ignominious death. No. I will do it. Todd, bring her here and hold her.”

  Todd refused to even look in Kayla’s direction. He grabbed the whimpering victim to haul her to where Kiplinger directed at the north side of the loose circle, directly behind Kayla. For a moment, she had a fleeting hope he might turn into a hero after all. Let the victim go. Call the pack.

  She heard the victim cry out as
cloth ripped. There were no heroes here.

  Derek had a better view than Kayla did. He stared behind her, his face half-turned, as if he wanted to look away but couldn’t. Muscles twitched in his jaw as his teeth clenched. She could hear the unknown woman crying, sobbing with hysterical fear.

  Suddenly, Derek’s eyes flew open wide, and then he squeezed them shut as he flinched away from whatever he saw. Kayla smelled rich, new blood. Meat. Wet, viscid wheezes replaced the sobs. Then only a soggy slither remained.

  The body hit the ground.

  A gloppy splatter echoed in the jar.

  A restless, breathy hiss rose into the night air, but Kayla couldn’t muster fear of the profane sound. A heavy, narcotic high buzzed in her head. The moon was too high. There was too much blood, adrenaline. Around the circle, she saw the other werewolves fighting the same internal battle.

  Paul forced his way into the center of the circle of kneeling werewolves and raised his arms. Blood coated his right hand and wrist, and ran in rivulets past his elbow as he stared toward the full moon that stared down with unblinking judgement. He chanted something in a language Kayla didn’t understand. She tried to focus on it, to pick out the sounds of words, but the syllables twisted into a language she never wanted to understand. In chorus, his cohorts responded with a ritual answer.

  From his position in the center, Paul chanted. From the east, Regina answered. An almost audible crackle of power arced through the air, through the circle of wolves, and the jar in Regina’s quarter began to glow with an unholy crimson hue. In that glow, the bruises Kiplinger had given her darkened, turned livid. Blood seeped out of the lacerations he’d artfully placed to ooze over her skin. She cried out in pain and dropped to one knee.

  The moon inched higher.

  Despite Regina’s distress, Paul chanted, phrases measured and even. Together, the twins replied, voices as one from the south. Veins stood out beneath their pale skin, blackened by the foul magic they called upon. Their voices rose octaves into discordant shrieks, higher and higher until their reply ran dry. They stood trembling, mouths open in silent cries, veins pulsing through their thin flesh. Derek’s face, twisted now with his struggle to keep his beast at bay, lit with ruddy light from the second container.