Page 8 of Blood Secret

3

Vale

No amountof research on the long drive to the city could’ve helped prepare me for what I found when I stepped out of the car and looked around Times Square.

I was alone in an impossibly dense sea of people. Their voices overlapped to the point of becoming unintelligible, and my sharpened sense of sound turned it into a head-splitting roar.

I pulled the slip of paper from my pack and looked down at the list of locations. There were three places at which the Council’s spies had spotted Janna Reed, all of which existed within Manhattan.

Two of them were clubs for vampire worshippers who didn’t know there were actual blood-sucking vampires among them, dancing alongside them. Taking those who caught their eye to back rooms, where feeding would take place.

Humans were so insufferably stupid—walking into dangerous situations, refusing to see what which was right in front of them.

Didn’t they have instincts? Didn’t they want to preserve their safety? Their lives, even, seeing as how it wouldn’t take much for one of their thirsty hosts to take too much?

No, they thought it was fun and sexy. Anything to get away from the pain of real life. Or the drudgery.

The third was a popular spot for witches and those who fancied themselves to be witches. Occultists, wishful thinkers. Again, they had no idea the reality of the witches they drank alongside. Humans only saw what they wanted to see.

Regardless of who chose to frequent the clubs, I couldn’t enter any of them and expect to leave alive. Nightwardens were the elite of the vampire world, to the point where we sat outside the rest of them.

They would know who I was and sense I wasn’t like them.

Witches, on the other hand? There was no love lost between our species in general.

They, too, would spot me and kill me just for being on the premises.

I had stared at Janna’s photo for so long, I had it memorized. One of the Council’s spies had captured her photo as she was leaving a vampire club one night.

Long, almost black hair. Like her mother’s. Heart-shaped face. High cheekbones, a delicate nose, heavy eyebrows which framed eyes that were also Isobel’s.

The first thing I had noticed about her on waking up. A full, pouty mouth which she had coated in deep red lipstick. Blood red.

I would know that face anywhere. I could point it out in the middle of Times Square if I saw it, even with thousands of other faces swarming around it. Only she wasn’t there. I didn’t sense any magical blood around me.

It was too early for her to be in the city. I could always go to her home. I had the address. I could wait for her to leave and follow her to whichever club she chose to visit. It seemed smarter to follow her before approaching her, to get a feel for who she was. It didn’t matter how much information the Council had compiled. I wanted to know how she thought, what she valued, whether she walked with a long, graceful stride or a short, quick one.

I had always found it easiest to guard my charges when I knew them intimately—not as a friend, but as a specimen. We were never friends. We weren’t supposed to be.

There was already a fully mapped-out plan for me to navigate the city boroughs via the rail system, so I followed it. It wasn’t difficult, and I managed to blend in. I found humans were willing to ignore that which didn’t differ from the norm, and a pair of tinted glasses hid the telltale red ring around my irises.

However, judging from some of what I saw in my travels, strange eyes would be the least strange thing of all. I looked downright normal compared to some of the trains’ more colorful characters.

Janna’s neighborhood was run down, to say the least. I could imagine a time when the sprawling homes were sharp with new paint and fresh, green lawns. In a different world. Immediately, I knew she didn’t have much money. An artist, they said. A starving one, from the looks of it.

The day was hot, steamy, and I could just imagine how hot it would be on the top floor with the sun beating down on the roof. Was she up there? Or was she smart enough to hide out somewhere cooler?

Would anybody living in the neighborhood believe the girl living on the top floor was a thrill seeker who rubbed elbows with supernatural creatures?

People sat out on front stoops up and down the street, fanning themselves, smoking, drinking out of paper bags. I decided to do the same—I didn’t believe anyone would challenge my right to be there. I very much got the impression that neighbors minded their business around there.

Funny, but the neighborhood seemed nicer only a block or two away. Perhaps this was the poor section. It hardly fit in with the image of a witch’s daughter, but I couldn’t think of her that way when she didn’t think of herself in those terms.

The first rule of working as a Nightwarden, for me at least, was understanding my charge as she understood herself. Getting inside her head, as it were.

When I had the luxury of imprinting, that was easy. Nothing about this particular assignment would be that easy, however.

I wouldn’t be able to sense her emotions because I wasn’t able to imprint on her. Only on her mother, whose blood waited for me in sealed containers in the bag between my feet. Not just there, either. In my mind. Always in my mind. Taunting me, reminding me of its presence. All I had to do was drink until there was no more, until I finally got enough…

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