Page 21 of Death Wish

“No. No way,” I said, staring at the darkened building in shock.

That blow to the head had done more than knock him unconscious. He had lost his damn mind.

There was no way I was allowing Kay to go anywhere near there. Let alone inside.

“Vampires? Really?” Was I really having this conversation? It seemed like common sense. “They’ll eat her. Or did you forget that?”

“Trust me,” Cole said. “Andre won’t let anything happen to her because of our arrangement. He owes me. He’s in my debt.”

“And that’s enough to convince you he won’t drain her dry?” I lowered my voice to a harsh whisper, even though it wouldn’t do much to prevent Kay from hearing me. She was standing right beside me, after all.

“Well, yeah.”

I threw my hands up and grunted. It wasn’t rocket science to know when a vampire went into bloodlust—all favors and decency went out the window. They became ravenous monsters at that point. I wasn’t going to risk my friend’s life to keep her safe. Where was the logic in that?

“Andre is nearly a century old,” Cole went on. “He’s a stickler for honor and the importance of one’s word.”

“Then, he has my word that I’ll kill him without hesitation if anything happens to Kay while she’s in there. Do you hear me?”

“Jade.” Kay’s voice was gentle, even though it wavered a bit. “I appreciate your loyalty, but maybe Cole is right.”

“Listen to the girl. She’s smart.” The smugness in his tone made me wish I had touched his unconscious ass back in the alley. “It’s a club run by vampires. Can you think of someone else who could take on a full demon other than a vampire with a couple of centuries on him?”

He strolled toward the club’s front door and gave the bouncer a knowing wave. The brooding man stepped aside for Cole, and he nodded for us to follow.

Looked like I didn’t have a choice.

When we walked through Red’s door, I glanced at the football player of a man standing there and noticed that his eyes scanned over Cole and Kay but never found me.

So, I was still invisible to the world. At least most of it. Was Cole right, and it was a demon thing? He was the first half-demon I’d ever reaped.

I’d have to ask Simon once I got back to Styx.

A knot formed in the back of my throat at the thought of Simon and Azrael. I must have broken a dozen rules tonight with getting involved in this mess. Not including the fact that I had failed my assignment with Cole. Once Azrael figured out that he had never passed through the spirit door and headed to his afterlife, he’d be looking for me. He might even send Simon after me—that was, if Simon hadn’t been Released already because of this.

Shit. This was bad. My tablet was probably flashing with all kinds of notifications from Azrael. But I’d do damage control later. Something big was going on here. Cole hadn’t even been close to dead when I had shown up to reap him. I may have been scolded before for questioning Azrael’s assignments, but things weren’t adding up.

The sudden appearance of haunts and a big-time demon before the solstice? Not normal. Once I made sure Kay was safe from Laurence—or Xaver—I would hike my tail right back to Styx Corp. and tell Azrael all about what was going on. He had to know another celestial being or whoever to handle these sorts of problems.

This was way out my league. That was for sure.

My only hope was he understood my involvement and wouldn’t hold Simon accountable for any of it.

Kay stayed close to me as we entered the club. I slid my right glove half off, just in case things went south. The burning white light was still a mystery to me, and I didn’t how to use it again, but hopefully if the situation arose, my body would know what to do. If not, I could still kill someone with my touch.

Just another thing I’d have to bring up to Azrael and Simon. Did either of them have magical glowing fingers? No other supernatural had the power that I knew of, so if this was actually my supernatural side finally showing itself, I had more questions instead of answers.

Nothing was making sense here.

We stepped into a giant, dimly lit club tinted in pulsing red lights. To the far right was a stage where a woman in the tiniest black frilled bikini swung on a pole to the thumping bass of music. A fully stocked bar lined the opposite wall, and tables, some with poles and dancers and some without, took up a majority of the floor space. All what you would expect from a shady club. But what was shocking was that unlike those other dirty establishments, Red was exceptionally clean with expensive and modern décor. Everything was either red, silver, or black and had straight lines. Sleek and sexy.

Vampires were a complicated group, but the basics were this. Vampires were high on the supernatural hierarchy not only because of their strength, speed, and near immortality. They were feared mostly for their involvement in organized crime. Only three bloodlines carried the vampire gene and could gain another life after dying once, and every were-creature, sorcerer, and witch knew them. The Perez, DeMonte, and Omari families had their hands in drugs, prostitution, money laundering, and any other kind of illegal dealings you can think of.

To top it all off, they all hated each other.

A flash of movement above the main floor caught my eye, and when I glanced up, I saw cages hanging from the ceiling with young girls dancing inside them. And I said young for a reason. They didn’t look older than twenty.

Gross. I knew age was irrelevant to vampires, but still—yuck. Some of these girls looked like they were supposed to be in high school.

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