Night Series Collection: Books 1 and 2 (45 page)

“An offering of blood.”

His hands shook and I backed off just a little bit. I didn’t want to give the poor man a heart attack. Just then, the candy-cane-striped flap fluttered from a stiff breeze. He jumped, grabbing his chest.

“Not much, just a prick of your thumb over the worst of the blight and they will be satisfied.”

Rubbing a leathery hand (evidence of years of hard labor) over his shock of gray hair, he emitted a sound that was a mix of sob and joy.

Screw this. I knew for Luc and Lilith and all the rest this job was just about the bottom line, how much money we could make, but I’ve never been into lies.

“Look into my eyes,” I commanded him.

Instantly his entire body went rigid as his eyes became tranced. Thanks to Asher’s and my recent sexcapades, Lust was firmly in the dominant position inside me. I poured my will against his. Cracking into a mortal mind was no harder than slicing through a watermelon. Being Lust, my natural ability to peer into someone’s soul is generally to discover their most wicked desires and exploit them to my own ends.

But tonight, I wasn’t in search of sex. I was in need of information.

“Where do you live?”

“On the windward side of the kissing ladies,” he answered in a robotic tone.

I knew exactly where he was talking about. It was a craggy mountain range about thirty miles away that in silhouette almost appeared to be two women kissing. Knowing just how far he’d come for help only made me more determined to do what I was planning.

Narrowing my eyes, I snarled, filling him with panic, with fear and terror. Not because I wanted him to have nightmares, but because I was about to wipe his memory clean. However, I was not as skilled at is as Bubba or some of my other peers were. Sometimes the memories I implanted fragmented. If that happened with Mr. Moreno, I wanted him so terrified that he wouldn’t dare to tread too deeply into this dream.

The key to living an open and free life is to leave no footprints behind.

“You will forget I ever asked you that, you will go home, and you will prick your thumb. Rest easy,
Viejo
.” Old man.

When I released his hand, he sat back and wiped his brow with a twitchy hand. Then a jubilant smile tipped the edges of his lips and it was easy to see the handsome man he must have once been before time and the sun had beaten him down. Grabbing my hand, he came around to my side and kissed the back of it reverently.

“
Gracias, Señora, gracias
.”

I tipped my head at his gratefulness and then watched as he walked out with a bounce in his step that hadn’t been there before.

“Greta!” I called the second he was gone.

She poked her dark head inside. Greta was as beautiful as the next Nephilim, with olive-toned skin and raven-black hair, piercing blue eyes and a lush mouth that man or beast would covet.

“I need a break.” I stood and yanked the hat off my head, shooting the pins that’d held it in place in every direction. Walking over to the fog machine, I turned it off and switched the brass chandelier to high, which immediately brightened the gaudy interior. Lilith was all about the drama.

The tent was a menagerie of clichéd sophistication, from its oriental throw rugs to its red gauzy drapings undulating gently from strategically placed fans. There was even a crystal ball with an antique silver holder that I’d refused to bring out because I found it all impossibly stupid.

“Dora,” she hissed, “you’ve barely just started. You’re only an hour in and the line is fecking long.”

Pinning her with a smothering glare, I shrugged. “All I’m asking for is ten GD minutes. Can you just freaking give me that? Okay?”

She snarled, showing me her baby fangs.

“I hope you don’t think I’ll be intimidated by that?”

“You know I can’t stop you, you’re the boss, but Luc’s the big boss and he’ll be—”

“You just let me handle Luc. Watch the crowd, tell them the madam needed to recharge with a quick orgy.”

“Ugh.” Her voice dripped contempt. Funny how most Neph looked down on a lust demon when we each had our vices. Talk about living in glass houses. “You know I can’t tell them that.”

“Then tell them whatever you need to.” I yanked off my gloves, tossed them onto the center of the table, and with a parting withering stare, traced to Mr. Moreno’s farm.

The night was rich with the sound of hooting owls and chirping crickets. Silver stars dusted the navy-teal sky, and I took a moment to develop a mental picture. I could see why he was so desperate to save this legacy for his grandson.

A small white farmhouse that looked old but was still well maintained sat before an expansive field that should have been overflowing with cabbage and corn and beans, but most of the plants were as wasted as he’d said.

It wasn’t easy walking in heels through the fallow soil—I probably should have left them back at the carnival. Reaching a row of large, green-petaled plants I knelt and touched a cabbage sprout. It was rotting, visibly molding, and the leaves were full of enormous holes.

I knew immediately what it was. Mr. Moreno’s patch was infected with cabbage white butterflies, which only attacked brassica. But if this was infected, then I didn’t doubt the rest of the garden had similar problems, as everything looked sickly.

Butterflies were such beautiful bugs, and it wasn’t so much them as their pupae that were destroying everything. The laid eggs hatched into ravenous little caterpillars that couldn’t care less about a man’s livelihood or a grandson’s hope of continuing the family legacy.

Curling my nose, I stabbed my hand through the soil and hummed, concentrating on driving all the power within me into my hand, transforming it into a glowing rod of mass destruction for the tiny bastard colony wreaking havoc on his crops.

Heat sizzled from my fingertips, and shot through the ground so that it in the night you could visibly see the red glow of death spread up and down each row.

There was nothing I could do for what had already sprouted, but at the very least I’d save the seeds that hadn’t yet bloomed, and that should hopefully be enough to keep him afloat through the year.

The moment I returned to the tent, Greta was shoveling people through so that I had no chance of escaping again. It went on throughout the night, and deep into it, so that by the time it was nearly over I was exhausted and spent. Thankfully no one else came in for anything other than selfish wants and needs, and those I could easily ignore.

There were maybe two hours max before sunrise, just enough time to catch a catnap before the fun started all over again. Not to mention that the
Día de Los Muertos
festival parade was tomorrow, and thanks to Vyxen, I was heading the decoration department.

She really did hate me.

I was just unfurling my exhausted self from the chair when Greta walked in. Damn woman didn’t look nearly as exhausted as I did. Her fire-orange gown looked just as pressed and tidy as it had at the start of the night.

I hated her immensely for it.

“What?” I snapped, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

“We have one more. She’s waiting outside.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? It’s damn near sunrise—send her away.” I waved my hand, ready and willing to trace the hell back to my trailer.

“You know that’s not how this goes. You stay until the last customer.”

Snapping my fangs at her backside as she walked out, I snarled, “You know I hate you, right?”

The sound of her laughter echoed behind her.

Immediately another body came in, but the way it moved had me instantly on edge. Gripping my armrests, I leaned forward.

The figure was swaddled in a dark poncho and moving not just in shadow, but with it, if that even made any sense—like she and the shadow weren’t separate entities but part of the same whole.

Then she sat and shoved her cowl back and I knew immediately who this was.

“You,” I hissed.

It was the old woman who’d been flipping tacos the night Tubby had disappeared on me. Her face was exactly as I remembered it. Sun-browned to a leathery finish, deep hooded eyes crisscrossed with deep grooves and wrinkles, a squat nose and a flabby-looking jaw. She wasn’t a big woman, but she had a presence about her that demanded attention.

“What do you want?” Because I seriously doubted she was here to have me read her future.

But the woman didn’t even blink, just continued to give me a chilly, almost vacant stare. And for the first time all day I felt Pestilence quirk up, unfurling as if from a long sleep to study the woman before me.

Lust didn’t care one way or another and ceded her position to Pest readily, which set my teeth on edge because I still wasn’t sure how to control that bastard.

“You gonna talk?” I snapped. “Or just stare at me like a dumb mute?”

It wasn’t often that a mortal unnerved me the way she was. In fact, I couldn’t remember another time when I wanted to tap my foot in frustration. Quirking a brow, I forced my nerves to calm down. With Pestilence so suddenly perky, I knew I couldn’t afford to let my emotions rule.

“Look, if you’ve got nothing to ask, then I suggest you go. Carnival’s already closed.”

Like a viper striking, she latched onto my hand, almost crushing my fingers in hers, and yanked me closer. Her strength was immense and the suddenly overpowering sweet scent of raw almonds flooded my nose, making me want to gag in response.

I hissed, baring my fangs.

Her black eyes snared mine and just as I was about to go balls-to-the-wall nuts on her, a whisper fluttered in my head.

On high alert and with nerves jangling, I forced my body to still and not react. That’s when the indecipherable fluttering became more distinct.

War is upon you…

That’s all the voice said, over and over again. “War is upon you? Are you telling me this? Is that you in my head?”

But the woman didn’t blink or release me.

War is upon you. War is upon you. WAR IS UPON YOU!

The final shriek had me jumping out of the chair, my claws sharpening as I growled and Pestilence’s slimy soul chortled that he wanted to sink his poison into her. My fingertips rushed with the tingling and I was trying to pull away, because as angry as I was, I didn’t want to infect her.

But my emotions were too chaotic and Pestilence too insistent. Before I could stop myself, I was pumping that poison into her.

Finally she released me and I knew I was going to have to take that out of her, but she calmly and deliberately reached beneath her poncho and extracted one small red mum and set it on the table.

“What is that?” I demanded. “Was that you the other night? Who are you?”

I snarled at her as she turned for the door flap, but no way in hell was she leaving here, not with the Black Death riding her.

Latching onto her shoulder, I twirled her around. Matte black eyes stared back at me, but that wasn’t because of me. The woman not only didn’t reek of disease, but Pestilence felt just as clueless as I did.

Suddenly the world around us erupted in screams and groans—some of it literally coming from right outside my tent. In the split second I turned to look, the old woman vanished.

It only took me a second to realize I had a lot more pressing matters to attend to than the fact that yet again someone had vanished right before me.

“Screw this,” I muttered, kicking off my shoes. I took off anything that would hinder my ability to fight should I need to. Grabbing hold of the hem of the gown, I ripped the fabric up to my knees and tossed it to the ground.

Then I walked out, right into bedlam.

I
really couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was like one of those out-of-body experiences where you’re right in the thick of the action, but outside it at the same time.

There were humans screaming and running, bumping into each other in their haste to get away from creatures that were the stuff of nightmares.

Rotted corpses moving at speeds that defied logic were jumping them, ripping into them, and swallowing chunks of flesh in their frenzied need to feed.

But it wasn’t just humans who were set upon. Zombies were not only mauling my brothers and sisters, they were inflicting grim damage. We’re not invincible—tougher to kill, sure—but you could definitely do it if you knew how.

Luc was at the head of the pack, a whirling dervish of grace and deadly skill as he slashed and hacked at a group of five that surrounded him like a pack of rabid dogs.

Apart from a few scratches on his bare neck and torso, he didn’t appear to be in any sort of imminent danger.

My gaze roved around the grounds and I spotted Bubba, Vyxen, Rhage, Cash, Claudette, and Stryker; all of them were out and fighting, some using crowbars and mallets, but most were using our God-given abilities of razor-sharp claws and super agility to strike while keeping out of the way of their hungry maws. Anyone working the carnival was clearly already in the fray and they were battling fiercely. Throw in the fact that Vyxen’s cat ears were nowhere to be seen and I’d never seen Envy so concentrated and terrifying-looking, I knew this was no one’s idea of a prank.

Sometimes when things are at their worst, life has a way of feeling like it slows to a complete stop. When your child dies in your arms, when your spouse looks you dead in the eye and tells you it’s over, those moments create an indelible mark, an imprint that never leaves. They stain you eternally.

I saw Stryker shove his fingers deep into the necks of two zombies, ripping their heads off. Vyxen rolled across the back of a lone female who was missing one arm and had her neck already half severed before kicking out her wedge-heeled boot and tripping the monster long enough that she could tackle it to the ground and gain the leverage she needed to finish the decapitation.

Luc moved like liquid silk, hitting the undead so fast they never even saw what was coming. Bubba had a giant mallet prop and was smashing in head after head after head, covering himself in gore and ichor. There were humans, not many of them left at this hour, but a few just huddled within whatever shadow they could find, trying in vain to turn themselves invisible. A child whimpered, turning his little face into his mother’s breast as she gazed on with horror that the impossible was real.