Hi!
I just realized I won't be able to update tomorrow, so I thought, what the heck, I'll do it right now. Hope you're having a great weekend! Thanks for reading :-)
Lara
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Chapter 45
The street forked in two equally shady directions â one leading to the Red Zone, the other to the Crimson District. Gosling Park stretched out behind them, one of the secret drug hotspot in New York City. Drug business was at an all-time low in the city and had been in decline since the vamps took over years ago, but there were still humans that craved the kind of rush vamps couldn't give. Or so they believed.
They moved towards the Red Zone, along the brick walls, slow footed and vary. Andy suspected Fabrice was hiding in one of his old dens. The one they were headed for was the closest.
"If we find him, I need to get a chance to talk to Fabrice. I mean, really talk." Andy shook his head. "Something was wrong when I last saw him."
She scanned the street for obstacles or enemies, then looked at him. "What makes you think Fabrice will talk to you?"
His jawline hardened. "I don't know. I just know he will. I've been doing this dance with him for a while."
She narrowed her eyes. "You said he attacked you the last time you saw him,"
He shook his head. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing. I'm not going to him without a plan or an exit strategy, Anna."
She shook her head and went back to observing their surroundings. The street still looked abandoned to her.
"If we find Fabrice we can solve this and go to the Circle. Together," Andy said.
She turned to him. That was why he was still willing to work together with her, even after she turned rogue. He wanted her to go the Circle, turn herself in and grovel. Apologize for something that she thought wasn't wrong? She was done explaining herself. To anyone.
"You know what I am now," she said. "Logic dictat-"
"If you tell him the truth, Brown will help you," Andy said.
"We both know what I've become. I'm no longer part of the Circle. There's no going back for me." She said it and tasted the truth on her lips.
Andy exhaled harshly. "The Circle's been my family for a very long time. I don't know about you, but tell me this: where would we be today if not for the Circle? No matter what else they are, the Circle's family."
Strands of his blond hair brushed his cheeks, as if he'd run his hands through repeatedly. White shirt, jeans and a black jacket. On the outside Andy Varner hadn't changed.
What about the inside? Andy had always been fiercely loyal to the Circle. Would he still help her if he knew all she had done?
She stared at him for a long moment, weighing the odds. "I don't trust them."
He stepped closer. "Then trust me. I know Brown. If you show him you're not like the other rogues, he's going to help you. There is a way."
A car alarm went off behind them, followed by repeated sounds of glass splintering. Screams and yells that built in a rising crescendo. Two dozen men, armed with baseball bats and iron bars were making their way down the street.
Another band of angry humans rioting. It was the second one they'd encountered in the past hour.
Their shoulders bumped together as they stepped back into the shadows in unison, waiting for them to pass. Andy turned to her, a slow smile tugging at his lips. Memories came back to her, like jetsam washed ashore after a long journey on a rough and stormy sea.
There was a time when they were friends, when they fought and trained together. When-
One of his hands settled on her shoulder like a pile of bricks.
"What happened? Talk to me."
"I don't know." She kept her eyes focused at a spot behind his shoulder, staring into darkness. "One of the rogues dragged me into a portal, I tried to manipulate it and we ended up at Victor's mansion." Her eyes went back to his face. "The next thing I remember was seeing you, in that street."
It was a fact, and still, something about it disturbed her in ways she couldn't describe with words.
His hands fell from her shoulders in silence.
"I know what I am," she said. "I know what it means. The Circle will try to kill me on sight because I turned rogue and it won't even be illegal."
He shook his head, staring at her hard. "No, there's a way out."
She stared at him. Had that once been her? Blindly loyal and unwilling to accept what was real? Had she never stared into the devil's face out of fear, fooling herself into a false sense of safety? The thing called hope was for fools.
"There is no way," she said evenly.
"Not everything's white and black, Anna. I'm not saying I agree with everything the Circle does or how they do it, but, this is the only system that works. Whatever else the Circle is, it's democratic and it protects its members. Look at us. If not for the Circle, where would we be?"
He didn't know what she knew. The weeks she'd spent with the Inri Brotherhood had shown her parts of New York she'd rather not have seen, less understood. There was no going back. Once you crossed that line it was over. Once rogue, always rogue.
She turned away from him and moved a step forward, back into the poorly lit street. "We have to find Fabrice first. Let's focus on this. Alexander said he-"
His hand was on her shoulder, spinning her around.
"You talked to Alexander?"
There was that look in his eyes again. She'd seen it before, and she still wasn't sure what it meant. She shook his hand off. It didn't matter.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. "Why in the name of the three great witches did you talk to him?"
A flutter of dark magic passed behind her eyes like a shadow. The power hummed under her skin, like an itch she couldn't scratch. Eager and ready. All she had to do was Â
"Anna."
She blinked, as if she could shake off the rush of power with the motion alone, and looked at him for a long moment. She'd gotten distracted. That feeling. It was too glorious, it left no room for anything else.
"Why are you really here?" she said.
"Why I'm here?" He exhaled and looked up, as if he might find the answer scribbled on a sticky note in the night sky above. He laughed softly. "Before I went to South America me and Maria were a team. We were a good team, well attuned to each other. We knew if a case got rough, we could rely on each other. Until about two years ago." He shook his head. "Anna, I worked very hard to get that far and I liked it, I really did. But when the Circle offered me the job in South America, I jumped at the opportunity. I wanted more. Some people couldn't afford the luxury of choosing. The career was what counted. That's what I told myself."
He closed his eyes. "When Maria died, I was supposed to be there. With her. I was her partner, dammit. Instead I was a few thousand miles away, chasing money and a career I thought I wanted." He turned his head, looking at her. "People are dying in this city. People I care about are in danger. This time I'll choose. And I'm not choosing the career or money. I'm ch-"
She held up a hand to silence him. Motion slipped into the street before them, exploding like the long extended breath of a cold giant. The silence of the grave dispersed into the street like a cloud of black dust settling.
A vampire like a mere shadow of a human reflected in thin air, clad in human form, yet moving faster than anyone strictly human could. He stopped in the middle of the street, dropping out of hyper speed, and crouched low. Blood-red hair bound in a high ponytail that swished back and forth when he turned his head. A face that showed black pools of eyes and high, full cheeks â all embedded in the complexion of an Asian.
She measured him, tried to pick apart the ingredients of his aura. Powerful, but she could probably take him.
The vampire turned and moved onward, lightning fast.
Andy exhaled, turning to her. "I've seen him before, when Fabrice attacked Alexander and the wolves. He's a rogue vampire."
She nodded. She knew what that meant. They were probably not as fast as the Asian vamp, but according to Andy they were in the vicinity of one of Fabrice's old hiding places. If the vampire was indeed with Fabrice, he might be headed that way.
* * *
The night pressed down on them, threatening with its slow, seductive pulse. The building was a closed down cinema that faintly reeked of trap. The faded, graffiti-smeared walls were one with the rest of the vicinity, the smashed in windows making the building look like a toothless, ashen clown-face. The steps leading up to the entrance were barely more than a heap of rubble and stone. This was a place Raphael Medici might have chosen, had his need of new hiding places been great.
They had seen two vampires on their hunt for the red-haired Asian, and successfully evaded them. Both could have been part of Fabrice's group, or belonging to someone else altogether. It was something they hadn't considered. If they didn't know the vamps from sight, how would they tell friend from foe in time?
She was beginning to regret her decision to join Andy. When she agreed to work together with him, she did so under the assumption that the need to find answers to her questions was greater than the risk a cooperation would bring. All that counted were results.
She peered through the veils of second sight, almost getting lost in the auratic gray. The Red Zone was a wasteland, void of life and auras, except for the occasional, distant forbidding smudge that reeked of the power of the grave.
Now they were standing in front of a shut-down cinema that held more than five dark auras undoubtedly belonging to vampires. Was one of them Fabrice?
Five vampires with auras so dark they might have swallowed them whole. If they went into the abandoned cinema, they would have to be confident to be able to take all of them.
She turned to Andy. He had gone into what she might call a military mode. Alert and assessing, arms lose at his sides, yet muscles tense like the hind legs of a crouching tiger â always ready for a fight should it come.
He turned to her and she could see it in his eyes. He was aware of the fact that they were at a disadvantage. Between him and her, she had no doubt they could take down the five vamps. Still, they were on foreign terrain. One had to assess and think first, then walk in.
Without a doubt it was a risk Andy was willing to take. Like her, he saw risks as challenges he could master. Like her he wasn't afraid of death. Courting death was one of his favorite pastimes, adrenaline a coveted drug he'd used for too long to resist. He would walk that razor sharp line and cut his teeth on it; could only live that way or die. She knew that now, understood it like she never had before.