Unawakened (2 page)

I preferred to think I had stolen Rob with no intention of letting the dae escape me, but that was another matter entirely. My sometimes roommate, frequent lover, and partner-in-crime wouldn’t be happy when he found out I had gone to see Kenneth alone.

The remorse of killing the woman would hit me later, but such was life on the fringe while working for the elite. Kill or be killed, and I had no intention of dying quite yet.

After several months of waiting for my broken ribs to heal, my patience with Kenneth and his operations had grown thin. I pulled my gun out of its holster, took aim, and before she could do more than gasp and flinch, I fired.

Lily crumpled to the sidewalk, twitched, and fell still. I waited until her blood stained the ground around her before stepping to her body, gun ready in case she decided to get back up.

Even the weakest of the dae and their bonded had ceased decaying to ash last month. Rob had sounded both pleased and annoyed by the development. I touched my fingers to Lily’s neck in search of a pulse.

She was already cold, as though all of the heat had been sucked out of her body right along with the fires that had burned in her eyes. Her blood stained my hand. Some people loved to kill, but I wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t even force myself to look at her. I swallowed several times so I wouldn’t throw up, rose to my feet, and headed for Kenneth’s door.

It opened before I had a chance to knock. Kenneth scowled at Lily’s body before turning his attention to me. “Was shooting her necessary?”

“She would have shot me if I had turned around, and she wasn’t letting me in.”

“All I have to do to lock you away for a long time is make a single call and inform the police you shot someone,” my boss hissed through clenched teeth.

“And I’ll tell them she’s a fire breather who was armed with an illegal gun. She threatened me.” I stowed my Beretta, pulled out my wallet, and flipped it open so Kenneth could see my concealed carry license. “Unlike her, I’m allowed to shoot people who threaten me, Mr. Smith. Rob told me you wanted to speak with me?”

“Come in, Collie.” Backing out of the way to give me space to slip in, he shut the door behind me and gestured to the basement stairwell. “I’m surprised you came.”

“Rob approved of our meeting.” Rob hadn’t been happy about it, but if he thought it was important enough to involve me in Kenneth Smith’s dealings once again, I’d listen—and look for a way out of working with him permanently.

“He has you eating out of his hand,” Kenneth snarled, stalking me down the stairs to his basement lounge. I flopped on the couch, propping my booted feet up on the antique coffee table. If Kenneth noticed the fine leather, I hoped he would wonder if I had purchased them for myself or if Rob had acquired them for me.

While Rob had made the purchase, I had paid the dae back for the boots by doing tedious paperwork for him—one of the few activities I could manage while my concussion and ribs healed.

Working with Rob had a lot more perks and a lot better pay than dealing with Kenneth. Whatever he wanted had to be important if Rob wanted me to deal with him again.

“So what? Business, Mr. Smith. You need me for something, else you wouldn’t have talked with Rob. I just killed your favorite, and you’re ignoring it. What do you need me for, what’s my pay, and when do you need it done?”

“As astute as ever. Very well. I’ve gone over the documents you provided, and I want you to sniff out Terry Moore’s associates, including the dean of your college. I also have a second job for you, if you’re up for the challenge.”

Dean Lewis had been paying Terry Moore to murder women while they were under the influence of Kenneth’s drugs. Not only had Terry murdered them, he had raped them, and the drugs had ensured they enjoyed it right up until he had killed them.

The thought of killing again didn’t enthuse me, but I was prepared to make an exception for the dean of my college. I still had the video evidence, hidden away where no one would find it without my help. I still had a copy of them on my personal laptop, too, waiting for me to delve into their horrors in search of answers. I didn’t need them anymore, though. The videos’ content was seared into my memories, and I woke too often from nightmares where I was one of Terry’s victims.

Sometimes, Terry became Arthur in my nightmares, and those were the nights I woke up drenched in a cold sweat. The dreams had gotten worse since Rob had vanished, as though his presence in my bed somehow kept them away. A few times when I had woken up from nightmares and Rob had been there, he chased them away and replaced my fear with more pleasant things.

“You’re asking a lot,” I grumbled.

“You’re the only one I have in a position to get what I need from him.”

I frowned, leaning back and stretching my arms along the back of the couch, positioning myself so Kenneth got a good look at my Beretta. “Likely true. What do you need me to find out?”

“First, I want you to find out what he was having Terry Moore do with my drugs. The earliest invoices were dated a week after I supplied him. Seems like too much of a coincidence to me.”

“I see. I guess I need to know what the drugs do. You gave me a brief summary of the effects. They can’t be detected on the current tests. They’re mild. But what do they actually do?”

Kenneth smiled, but there was nothing friendly about his expression.

I tensed, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something dark coming towards me. I whipped my hand to my gun, but Kenneth’s dae was faster. He caught my wrist, yanked my arm back, and before I could even scream, he jabbed a needle into my arm.

Kenneth had moved while I was distracted by his dae. He clamped his hand over my mouth to keep me quiet. I thrashed, but the two didn’t release me until Kenneth’s dae pulled the needle out and tossed the syringe on the coffee table.

A few smears of red lingered in the barrel, and I trembled, remembering what the drugs had done to Terry Moore’s victims.

“I don’t know exactly what they do. That’s not my problem, Miss Daegberht. It is, however, now yours. I expect a full report when it wears off. Don’t worry. Jacob will take you home so you don’t have any unfortunate mishaps on the way. I’ve been told by reputable sources it takes about twenty minutes to kick in, no matter how it’s taken.”

Kenneth pulled his hand away from my mouth, and I realized he was wearing gloves. I shuddered.

Had Rob told them about my allergy? To cover my growing fear, I snapped my teeth together and sat straighter. “You son of a bitch.” I rubbed where I had been stabbed with the needle. Kenneth’s dae had also been wearing gloves.

At least I wouldn’t have to deal with an allergic reaction in addition to being drugged.

“You should be happy, Miss Daegberht. This is the good stuff, the stuff you couldn’t afford even if you wanted it. You’ll finally have the perfect high you’ve been searching for all this time. Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you wanting another hit, no matter how good a job you did fighting it.”

“Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“You’ll die, for starters. You’d probably be dead before you could pull the trigger. Don’t kid yourself. You won’t do it. You only killed Lily because she always had what you wanted. Take her home, Jacob. No side trips. However appealing she might be to you, she’s off limits—for now.”

I spat curses at him and reached for my gun. Kenneth’s dae grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. In spite of Kenneth’s estimate of twenty minutes, the drugs were doing something to me—something that made it difficult to resist the dae.

“Oh, and another thing, Miss Daegberht. It should wear off in about twelve hours. If my understanding of the drug is correct, I recommend you stay home. Do try not to forget to write notes on the drug’s effects. It may be important for your research later. We can talk more about your job after you’ve recovered. Perhaps I’ll come visit you a little later tonight, once you’ve gotten accustomed to the drug.”

There was so much I wanted to tell him, but my tongue refused to obey me. My arms and legs were no better. Kenneth’s dae dragged me towards the stairwell, and I stumbled along with him. By the time Jacob got me into Kenneth’s car, I could barely stay on my feet, let alone fight him. Had Rob set me up? If so, why?

When the first tingling wave of the high hit, everything narrowed to the sensation of my clothes caressing my skin, the leather rubbing against me, and the pleasure of even the lightest touch.

The initial surge of the drug’s influence subsided by the time Jacob dropped me off in front of my apartment, although my skin’s hypersensitivity to touch remained. The dae leered at me, leaving me with zero doubt of what he had in mind for me.

I liked when Rob looked me over head to toe, but Jacob doing it sent chills through me. I scrambled out of the car, backed out of the dae’s reach, and slipped my hand into my coat for my Beretta.

“You don’t want to do that, Miss Daegberht.”

“Oh, I do,” I replied, although I didn’t pull out the weapon. “If he even thinks of backstabbing me again, I’ll start sending his hounds back to him in pieces, and I’ll take out his most useful ones first. Lily was just the start. No more tricks. If he really wants my help, he better get his head out of his ass, because right now, I’m not feeling very benevolent. I may decide Dean Lewis might be interested in knowing Kenneth Smith is gunning for him.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I wouldn’t? Are you so sure about that? I would, Jacob. I would, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. He broke his trust with me. If he’s stupid enough to think I’m going to just accept his attempt to kill me was a part of the work, he’s mistaken. He can also expect a hefty bill for this… stunt.”

Maybe the drug made all of my nerves sing, but once the initial surge of pleasure had faded, it hadn’t affected my ability to think. It didn’t smother my anger, either. I closed my fingers around my Beretta’s grip, wondering if I could get away with leaving another body lying around for someone to find.

With the emergence of the dae, bodies were plentiful and few seemed to miss the dead. Given time, once friendships and lives were rebuilt, people would miss those who were gone, but the world was currently inhabited by the strange who were also strangers. For all the dae often took on monstrous forms, they were still a lot like humans.

They only cared for those with close ties to them, ties most hadn’t had time to form.

“I’ll make certain he is aware of your opinion.”

“My opinion is non-negotiable, Mr. Jacob. Perhaps this will wake him up to reality: I’m tired of being stepped on. If he even thinks of trying to ruin my schooling, remind him if I can go behind his back and get admittance into Bach studies, there’s a lot more I can do, too.” While some of my speech was bluffing, one important fact remained: I had leverage on Dean Lewis
and
Kenneth Smith, if I could figure out the best way to use it. “Ask him if he wants me on his side, or should I have a talk with Dean Lewis?”

“Are you threatening him, Miss Daegberht?” the dae growled.

“I don’t make threats, dae. I make promises. Remember, he backstabbed me first. If he hadn’t sabotaged my gear, he wouldn’t be in this position right now. Get the fuck out of my sight. You and your pathetic master sicken me.”

I turned and stormed to my apartment building. If Jacob said anything, I didn’t hear him over the bang of me slamming the front door.

Chapter Two

Rob was lounging on my couch when I stomped into my apartment. For a long moment, all I could do was stare at him, wondering if he had somehow been involved with Kenneth’s plan to pump me full of the red drug that had already caused me so many problems.

My fear of ending up exactly like one of the girls from the murder videos warred with my doubt Rob would participate in such a scheme. Rob was ruthless enough to make other dae fear him, but he hadn’t broken his trust with me yet.

“You’re flustered.”

Rob was getting better at reading my emotions, especially the ones I didn’t want him to pick up on. In the months since Kenneth had tried to kill me, I had adapted to Rob sensing my strongest emotions, and I had even learned how to suppress the ones I really didn’t want him noticing.