Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

We’d dispatched Sebastien. Queen Daisy was no more.

Two names had been struck from my Bad People list.

And nobody had noticed we were doing the murdering.

One more name to go. Gideon’s.

Looking around the bar, absorbing everything we’d done and where we were right now, my heart and head were content. I’d never felt better. Maybe it was the afterglow from fantastic sex, or maybe it was because I was exactly where I needed to be.

Zee was on stage, owning his unique rendition of “Feeling Good.” Victor had casually propped a hip against the bar, and held a sophisticated Bloody Bitch in his hand. Behind him, Tom Collins fixed drinks for his customers, right where he wanted and claimed he needed to be.

Life buzzed in every corner of the hotel.

The vampires were still outside, waiting for their queen who definitely was not coming back. Victor would speak with them soon, while adding some mental persuasion to convince them Daisy had already left.

We were in a good place, the three of us.

What had I been afraid of?

Look at what we’d made.

A home. A family of orphans, misfits, and outcasts.

Everything I’d fought for... everything all Lost Ones had fought for was here, under this roof. New lives played out. We’d made a whole new world for ourselves. Gideon Cain wasn’t going to take all this from me—from us. He didn’t get to ruin it.

I was going to stop him... We were going to stop him.

And I had an idea how to do it.

I pushed from the table and headed for the bar where Victor noticed my approach, his eyes as hungry now as they’d been earlier.

“Tom, can you unlock Daisy’s phone?” I took the pink Hello Kitty phone from my pocket and handed it over. Zee had noticed it slip from her pocket just as he shoved her body through the portal. He’d retrieved it after our shower session, when he’d asked Jimmy to help with the closet cleanup.

Tom studied the pink Hello Kitty phone. “Now, why would I want to do a thing like that?”

“Daisy coming here had nothing to do with a truce,” I explained, as Victor sidled over. “She made it clear, the vampires have never been interested in letting any of us go. I suspect it was Gideon who suggested she agree to our meeting.”

Tom considered it while turning the glossy phone over in his hand. “Seems likely.”

“She came here to capture me, assuming I’d roll over because I’m human now, then she’d take me to Cain. I need you to unlock her phone, so we can send Cain a message.”

“A message that relays what information?” Victor asked, all caught up on our conversation.

“She’s got me.”

“I can do that,” Tom agreed. “But there’s no signal in here. I’ll need to be outside the wards.”

“I’ll transport you outside the wards in my phone,” Victor said, but then turned back to me. “It will likely take more than a text message to convince Gideon Cain you’re caught.”

“It will, and that’s where you come in. You’re going to mentally control the vampires waiting outside, and take me to Vampire Mansion. We don’t need to make it all the way, we’ve just got to make it convincing.”

“As a . . . gift?” Victor asked, eyebrows lifting.

I smiled. “Exactly.”

“And what of our Zodiac?”

As if on cue, Zee finished up his performance to thunderous applause. His wings pulsed, absorbing the adoration. Sensing we were talking about him, he glanced over, and grinned.

“I need him to get in touch with some old friends.”

While Victor took Tom on a little trip outside the wards to make a phone call, I told Zee to gather the troops.

Outside, a line of black sedans waited. We wouldn’t have long before the vampires started asking a whole lot of awkward questions.

But we were going to need them for what came next.

Minutes passed liked hours, but Victor soon returned to the reception and gave me the nod. The bait was set.

Alright, now we just needed this next part of my brilliant plan to be convincing.

“Ah, Victor,” I announced, as though surprised to see him, and also making sure the folks chatting in the foyer heard.

Victor strode from the doors to the desk, his long dark hair a dramatic cloak behind him. “Adam Vex, I hereby claim you as a gift for my queen.” His steely fingers clamped onto my arm.

“Oh, no!” I gasped. Did I sound surprised? Everyone looked surprised, including Madame Matase. I hadn’t had time to brief her on our plan, so I hoped she’d be alright until I could explain later. “It was all a ruse this entire time?” Was I laying the acting on a bit thick?

Thankfully, Zee wasn’t here to critique my efforts.

I glanced at Madame Matase and winked. Hopefully she wouldn’t think I meant to murder anyone, which was generally what winking meant around here. She winced. Had my wink looked like a twitch?

“I object.” Madame Matase slammed down her knitting needles and stood behind her desk. “As Adam’s guardian, his friend, and the hotel’s receptionist, I will not allow him to be taken. Not even by you, Lord Reynard, whom I had given the benefit of the doubt but never fully trusted.”

Oh dear. I should definitely have warned her. “Uh, no, please, you don’t need to object. Everything is going to be alright.” I squinted, trying to convey an expression that said it was all fine, but probably looked more like I was having a stroke. “Victor and I will sort it all out and I’ll be back here by the morning, right as rain!”

“If by sort it out you mean you will soon belong to the vampires and I will take my rightful place among the council, then yes, absolutely,” Victor said.

He was very convincing.

I was convinced.

Most everyone in the foyer who gawked were also convinced.

Noreen Greene, scribbling on a pad, was convinced—hopefully enough to immediately write an article and publish it. Cain would see the news, and we’d have a reliable source to back up our ruse.

And nobody could attack or stop Victor from taking me, because of the wards.

“Zodiac will not stand for this!” Madame Matase fumed.

“That demon can kiss my suit-clad backside,” Victor told her, in a very un-Victor-like voice. It was enough to signal that all was not as it seemed. Madame Matase frowned, her fury turning to irritation. I tried to throw her a sympathetic expression, but Victor yanked me through the foyer and outside, onto the porch.

“Oh no,” I told anyone who happened to be outside and within earshot. “The mean vampires have got me.”

Victor whirled and with a whip-like snatch, grabbed my neck, yanked me off my feet, and forced my face close to his. “Apologies for my rough handling, but your acting is atrocious and we need to convince our audience,” he said, all aggressive and snarly. Just the way I liked him.

“It’s alright.” I squeezed the words through clenched teeth.

“How were you able to convince anyone you were human for the past four years?” he asked, making it look as though he was all up in my face threatening me.

I wasn’t entirely sure I had. “By looking cute?”

The vampires began to emerge from their cars.

“What’s happening here?” A vampire clad in an all-black suit climbed the hotel steps, approaching from behind Victor’s left shoulder. “Where’s the queen?”

Victor waited until the vampire had gotten close enough, then dipped his chin, and when he next spoke, his voice resonated with a deeply powerful timbre . “Daisy went on ahead. Our queen left instructions to follow my commands. Obey me now and secure my gift to her majesty.”

Dangling from a vampire’s hand while he audibly manipulated a subordinate wasn’t supposed to be hot, right? But watching Victor work was a rare treat, and I was here for it. Had I actually been in any danger, I may have reacted differently. Or not.

The vampire driver’s face fell slack, probably while Victor’s talent rummaged around in his brain, then he perked up again and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Oh, that was . . . easy.

Victor’s tight little corner smile reminded me of one of the many reasons why I loved our powerful murder daddy. He’d always been dangerous, but now he was my kind of dangerous. And Zee’s. He’d be so sad he missed it. Maybe we could roleplay later?

“Return to your car and use your security communications devices to inform the others of our new orders. Once you have relayed those orders, you will return us to the royal premises.”

“Yes, sir.” The vampire hurried back to the car.

“Adam?” Victor asked, still holding me off my feet. “Are you alright?”

“Hm?”

“My dear, are you aroused?”

“What?” I croaked through tight teeth. “No. What?” A little bit. Maybe a lot.

His smirk was worth it. “We shall explore this later.” Turning, he carried me down the steps, opened the car door, and flung me in the back, then ducked in behind me. “Did I hurt you?”

I spluttered, and rubbed my throat. “No, I’m good, just ... scratchy.”

“We really must get your power back.” Now we were in the snug, atmospheric back of the luxury car, when he spoke, the posh lighting caught in his deadly fangs. “So we can explore your sexual preferences in finer detail.”

“Yes, that.” I coughed.

But back to the moment... and our plan appeared to be working. The vampires appeared to be fooled, and we’d soon be on our way.

Victor noted me checking out the other cars through the windows. “The royal guards are excellent at following orders, but less so at thinking for themselves.”

And he controlled weak-willed people like puppets on strings. “You’re so damn hot, you know that, right?”

He tugged his cuffs back in line and smoothed his hair. “I’ve had a great deal of practice.”

Mercy.

The car’s engine hummed, and the vehicle pulled away from the curb, in line with the others.

“We will arrive at the mansion in approximately forty-five minutes,” the driver said, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

“Good.” Victor acknowledged.

“Depending on traffic. We’re hitting the bridge right around Friday night peak time.”

Victor gave the driver a nod. “Acceptable.”

We watched the quaint city streets give way to a more industrial location, and then as we approached the bay, the enormous Golden Gate Bridge sparkled above the water in the distance. With any luck, we’d hit it at exactly the right time of night.

“Gideon will not wait for you to be locked behind the vampire gates. He’ll not want Daisy to hold that much sway over him. Are you prepared?” Victor asked softly.

The background drone of the car engine and the snug back seats lulled my mind into believing we were safe. But all that was about to change. “I think so.” I checked the rear window. Strings of headlights blazed back, but I couldn’t’ tell whether any of those beams came from the Love Wagon . Zee might—should be back there somewhere.

“We will only get one chance at this.”

“I know.” I faced ahead again. “But Cain won’t kill me, he needs me.”

“He needs you temporarily .” Victor scooped my hand off my thigh. “It goes without saying that I do not like this course of action, but I’ve never been able to stop you, and I do not intend to try now. Your choices are your own. The best I can do is vow to protect you with my own life, and I have no doubt Zodiac will do the same.”

“You are both stronger than you know.”

“Because of you.”

“Who knew dragon sex amplified Lost Ones talents.” I huffed a little laugh.

“I doubt anyone has survived a dragon long enough to become intimate with them.”

That was likely true.

“Although, I suspect it’s being with you that has made us powerful... and the hotel added to the mix, in all of its unexpected and peculiar ways.”

The hotel... “Do you think the portal was always there?”

“No. I suspect the concentration of Lost Ones and our intimate highlights have altered the locale enough to effectively open a doorway. Everything is beginning to come together.”

“Destiny?”

He knew how I disliked the idea of destiny, of not having control, but he smiled. “Something like that.”

“If we survive this—when I get my power back, and we come out the other side intact—what do we do about the portal?”

“No doubt, the hotel will decide for us.”

Maybe. But it was a lot of responsibility for a human-ish dragon, an incubus, and a vampire. Or, another way of looking at it suggested we might be the hotel and its portal’s perfectly imperfect guardians?

On the road ahead, the traffic snarled up, slowing our motorcade to an inch-by-inch crawl. The Golden Gate Bridge loomed large, like enormous red gallows—which was not a helpful thought.

I glanced behind us again. No sign of the Love Wagon .

“He will be here,” Victor said.

I knew that.

Zee had never let me down. He didn’t know how to.

People in the cars beside ours might be about to witness the show to rival all outdoor events. But hopefully, not a massacre. “Do you think San Francisco has room for a dragon like me?”

All Lost Ones were registered and graded on power, which was another way of saying all potentially powerful Lost Ones were removed from society to keep the people safe. Maybe if I saved the city, the SSD would let me go afterwards?

“I think a lot of things are about to change, and none of us can control it.”

“Not even you?” I teased.

“Not even me.”

A loud thud on the roof bounced the car. We both looked up, and found a dent in the roof lining.

“What was?—”

Victor vanished. Or more accurately, he flung open the door and dashed outside quicker than my eyes could track.

“Adam, stay inside!”

Another thump on the roof rocked the car. I braced against the seat, and tried to get a look through the windows, but all I saw was a blur of vampire and the shocked faces of people gawking from the cars around us.

Then I caught a glimpse of a large mound of fur in the reflection of the car next to ours. Fur with claws. Werewolf.

And not a friendly one.

“Protect the queen’s gift!” my vampire driver barked into his security mic. “Clear a path!” Then he slammed his foot on the gas and lurched the car between stationary traffic. He might have been easy to manipulate, but he sure made a great getaway driver.

The engine roared.

The car door tore off, and a werewolf shoved its enormous snout and upper body in through the gap where the door had been. Claws slashed in my direction.

Clearly, there was more than one werewolf.

But that was fine.

We had more than one vampire too.

The werewolf lunged again, and snapped its teeth together, too close for my liking.

I kicked out. My heel smacked its snout. A whimper sounded and the werewolf vanished, toppling outside the racing car.

“Hold on!” the driver yelled. He slammed on the brakes.

Tires screamed on asphalt and the sudden deceleration flung me against the back of the passenger seat. I dropped, slumped in the rear footwell. This had not been part of the plan.

“What the fu—” The windshield exploded and the driver’s final words lodged in his throat, stuck there by an enormous tentacle made of thick, oily darkness.

We had extra company.

“Adam!” Victor threw himself into back of the car, grabbed me under the arms and lifted me out of the footwell, onto the back seat. “Cain’s here. And he’s brought a sizable force. We are currently outnumbered.”

I held Victor’s panicked, swirling mercury eyes. “Alright, we can do this. You got your phone?”

He nodded.

We were going to need more help.

Tendrils of shadow looped around Victor’s middle and snapped him from my arms, out the back of the car.

Snarls and growls sounded outside.

It was time.

“Gideon Cain,” I vowed. “Let’s show the world what you’re really made of.”

I climbed across the back seat and hopped out of the car. People scattered, abandoning their vehicles on the bridge... and up ahead, under the first huge tower, stood Gideon Cain. He’d clearly had a rough few days, which had probably started around the time Agatha’s jewelry store got broken into and his plans to contain my power were stolen. Then Agatha was killed, and all her notes on Cain had been sent to the press. He’d been exposed as a megalomanic, and an unregistered sorcerer. After that, someone had trashed his security at home, and sent him a dead demon pimp in a crate.

Yeah, the stress showed in his crazy salt and pepper hair and unshaven face, but mostly in the fact he wasn’t even trying to hide behind human glamor anymore.

“Adam Vex!” Gideon roared. An aura of sparkling smoke pulsed around him. His human features had been stretched over inhuman bones—his glamor too sharp, too surreal. He’d gone beyond caring what people thought. “There you are. Outside your wards and finally mine.”

Whiplike tendrils of shadow lashed from his aura. All that darkness ... that rage and hate? That was the true heart of him. A vicious, hateful creature who wanted more and more power. But mine had eluded him.

“Did you think your little ruse would work?” Gideon laughed and began walking forward. “Did you think I’d fall for your pathetic lies?” Closer, he strode. So confident. So full of himself. I was human, and no risk to him. Or so he believed.

Cain stopped with a few strides left between us. “The text messages, the fake news. Did you think I wouldn’t know this is a setup?” His dark eyes were bottomless pits that drilled down into his dark soul.

I’d known he was a monster in disguise, but seeing it was something else.

I smiled back at him and thrust my hands into my pockets. “Do you think I wouldn’t know that you’d know this was a setup?”

“What nonsense are you spouting, boy?” he snapped.

Alright, maybe that hadn’t been clear. “I mean... This is obviously a setup, right? So of course I’d know that you’d know it’s a setup.”

“I do know. I just told you that. Your ruse didn’t work.”

“I’m agreeing with you. It’s obvious. Like you said.”

Cain frowned, then snarled. “Have you lost your mind as well as your power? Enough. Come with me, and I’ll see to it your associates aren’t harmed.”

Speaking of associates, Victor blurred to my side, fangs and claws on display. He’d been fighting, so he had that dramatic, disheveled look that he wore so well.

A whole bunch of lupine shifters climbed onto cars and slunk between trucks, encircling us. They were probably mercenaries or a local gang Gideon Cain had paid to be here. He didn’t have friends—only staff.

The vampire at my side would fight until his dying breath. He was worth a thousand dime-store werewolves.

Now would be the perfect time for Zee to swoop in and do his “save the day” routine, probably while wearing a crazy hat he’d picked out especially for this occasion.

“I’m just sayin’ that if I knew you’d guess this was a trap, then I’d have planned for that... Wouldn’t I?” I continued.

Gideon’s top lip rippled. The wind whisked his aura around him, making him seem ethereal and ghostly. “I understand your point, boy.”

“And if I knew you’d know, then I’d also bring backup... Wouldn’t I?” I hadn’t meant that last part to sound like a question, but Gideon didn’t seem to catch on. Among his smoky flames he straightened, and scanned the abandoned cars.

“Yeah, that’s right. You should be worried.” I took a step forward. “All the little people you’ve trodden on over the years... everyone you’ve climbed over to get to the top... all the Lost Ones you’ve used and abused to get to the top of Cain Towers...”

I gave Victor a nod. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tossed it into the air with a suitably dramatic flick. Electrified smoke poured from the phone’s tiny speaker holes, and Tom Collins’s transparent outline buzzed and shimmered to life.

“You brought the bartender?” Cain laughed, incredulously. “What’s the djinn going to do? Serve me a Dirty Martini?”

Tom brushed his incorporeal clothes down and turned his slow grin toward Gideon. “This bartender serves vengeance.”

“Is this it?” Cain snorted. “Is this the best you’ve got? A broken AI and a penniless, homeless vampire lord? And you? A pathetic shadow of your former self. That’s it?”

Right now it was. Because Zee was late. “No, obviously,” I huffed.

“Leave it to Zodiac to be late for his grand finale performance,” Victor murmured under his breath.

Cain’s evil chuckle billowed around the bridge, carried on the wind. “I’m almost tempted to wait to witness what comes next, Mr. Vex. But you see, I have a city to dominate, you’re in my way, and I am done playing human .” Gideon reached up to the pendant at his neck, tore it free, and held it out. “Unlock your power, Mr. Vex, so I can rule this world. That is your destiny.”

“Why would I do that?” If I even knew how. “You think I’m going to agree. Why?”

Cain’s smile stretched. He’d been waiting for his moment. “Because if you don’t, the demon and his colorful entourage will all meet a sudden and dramatic end. Oh, were you waiting for their arrival? A last minute save?” Cain slowly shook his head. “Your little band of porn demons isn’t coming . Not here, not now, and never again !”

No . . .

He couldn’t have Zee. It wasn’t possible.

Cain laughed. “I expected more from you. You’re even more pathetic than I’d assumed. What a sad day this is. A worthless, powerless little man who has only known how to hide in his stolen hotel and cower behind those who are stronger than him. You’re a coward, Mr. Vex. A nobody. Chosen One? You’re a joke. The prophecy is very obviously wrong.”

“Fine! You want to know how it works? Give me that damn bead.” I stomped in front of him and snatched the pendant from his hand, then raised it up. All my power, all my reason for existing, all of me was in that one little bead?

“You’re not wrong about Adam,” Tom said, addressing Cain. His voice was thinner, a little strained, but it carried the same snark. “You’ve met him a few times, but I’ve had to work with these idiots for seven weeks. Frankly, they have no idea what they’re doing and are a risk to themselves and others.”

“Thank you, Tom,” I called back. “We don’t need your commentary right now.”

“The sorcerer has a valid point.”

“That sorcerer took you from your family, made you forget, and turned you into a barman at our hotel, so... just saying, you maybe don’t want to agree with him?”

Tom folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “Is this going to take long? I left the bar with the chef.”

“Unleash its power for me,” Gideon said, ignoring Tom. “Do it now, or you, your friends, and everyone cowering on this bridge dies.”

I huffed, and with raised eyebrows, looked up. “Really? You’re going to double down on the threats? You know I’m human, right? You could just click your fingers—” Switching the pendant to my left hand, I clicked the fingers of my right. “And snap my neck.”

“Not until you give me access to that .” His gaze had left the bead for a second, but skipped back again now.

“I always wondered about that line in the prophecy... The heart of me. I took it literally. I thought it meant my actual heart. My heart will save us, or doom us all .” Switching the pendant back to my right hand, I raised it between us and caught the lights from the Golden Gate Bridge in its jewel-like shine. “But now I think my heart means something else. Like... maybe... the people I love, or love in general. You know?”

Cain’s already warped face twisted into a disgusted grimace. “You really like the sound of your own voice, boy.”

“At least I have a heart.”

“Stop delaying—” Gideon snatched my neck. Thick, oily fingers squeezed. “Or I will crush the life out of your fragile cockroach human bones.”

Purple lightning split the night sky, and in its glare, the dark outline of a gloriously winged demon flash-burned into my eyes. His wings parachuted open—the broken one still bandaged but clearly healed enough to fly—and he swooped in, landing in style on the roof of the vampire’s car. Zee spun Shareen in his hand and propped the sword’s blade against his shoulder. “Did someone say cock?”

Cain spluttered his surprise, fingers squeezing my throat. “How did you?—”

“Ha!” Zee tipped his Stetson hat and strutted down the windshield to the hood. “Some advice, Mr. Evil. Don’t employ lowlife scumbugs who have definitely had the pleasure of my company. I’m not cheap, but I do get around.” He smirked.

“Enough! Give me that!” Cain snatched the pendant from my hand, and flung me away. My back hit the car, my head smacked the metal. Everything flashed black, so I missed the moment when my knees hit the gritty asphalt, but the shock of pain was real.

“Adam!”

I wasn’t sure if it was Victor or Zee who spoke. The bridge and its lights spun and pulsed in time with my thumping skull. But it was going to be okay. On my knees, with Gideon Cain about to lay into the others, I opened my fist, and there in my hand, was the fragile little bead that contained all my truth, taken from Gideon’s pendant with a little sleight-of-hand and misdirection.

There would be no going back after this, no hiding, no pretending I was a sweet and innocent human. I was about to seal my fate and maybe even lose my freedom.

But Cain would kill Victor and Zee.

I had to save them.

Save them all.

With the world spinning and my body ablaze, I tossed the bead into my mouth and gulped it down.