Page 12 of Kissed the Mark
I guessed I should consider myself lucky shedidn’t just suck me dry and leave me for dead.
Chapter Seven
Leandra the Amnesiac
THAT NIGHT, I LOITERED OUTSIDE The Jade Spirit,eating my takeout with chopsticks. Leandra always had a way offinding me, whether I wanted her to or not, but I’d lingered atvarious haunts the vampire had popped up at before without sightingher. I wasn’t interested in her fake bounty anymore, but if themayoral council wasn’t going to take the situation seriously, I wasgoing to get some answers for myself and make sure the people ofMayfair weren’t at risk from AWOL vampires doing what theypleased.
Like a phone that didn’t ring when watched,Leandra didn’t show. Last night, I’d woken up in her lair aloneafter the sun had already risen and had to walk all the way backinto the town proper. I had no idea where she’d gone, and her lairwas incredibly far from anything else, underground and surroundedby a plethora of generic-looking homes I was sure I wouldn’t beable to find my way back through. I’d thought to mark it on themaps app on my phone, but the screen was shattered, the phonecompletely dead. I only vaguely remembered passing a subdivisionsign that had something about a flower, maybe a daisy or daffodilor D name.
Maybe she was upset that she’d kissed me andthen she’d left. The idea of this stung me more than I would’vethought. Fairies didn’t age quite as rapidly as humans, but theywere far from immortal. If she evenwasinterested in me, itwasn’t like it would be anything long-term. I had to keep kickingmyself about it every time the kiss crossed my mind. It was vampiremagic.Stop deluding yourself, Olympia.You aren’t trying toget romantically involved with someone dangerous like this, vampireor not.
The bodies weren’t in the forest anymore.I’d checked on them shortly after my depressing visit to the townhall. Someone supernatural had taken them, not the police oranything, because there wasn’t caution tape up—just the imprint ofbodies and the old smell of blood, probably a lot of it mine. Thepart that stumped me waswhomoved the bodies, whether thecouncil had acted fast to remove them when they knew of them, orwhether Leandra had gone right here after our little encounter inher lair and dragged them away. Or maybe the vampires knew aboutthem and had acted on their own?
I breathed in the autumn air mingled withthe smell of Chinese food and made a decision. Sleep had not cometo me at all today, and I’d managed to pull together a list of thesubdivisions in the suburbs surrounding Mayfair that I thoughtsounded familiar. I set out to check each one. A few hours later Ihad my answer—it was a subdivision called Dandelion Meadows,something I found deeply ironic for a creature of the night. Thehouses looked too old in the other ones, too colorful or unique.The Dandelion Meadows subdivision had nothing but one identicalStepford Wife house after another.
This was a newer, wealthier suburb than alot of things in Mayfair. I searched for an anchor point. There wasno way I was combing over every square inch to get some trapdoor Icouldn’t remember the location of. The oldest thing around was ared maple tree in someone’s backyard. I sneaked to it, praying thatits owners didn’t have some kind of high-tech trespassing equipmentaround.
I placed my palm on the tree, feeling thegrooves of the red maple. The tree was about fifteen years old buthad only been planted here for around four. Not the strongestconnection to the earth ever, but it would have to do. I circledthe tree three times counterclockwise, then four, then five.Usually it would’ve worked by now, but the tree was so young. Aftertwo more turns I blinked and the world around me changed.
Everything took on an ethereal glow, thegreens iridescent in the dark night, the stars, normally not sovisible with all the light pollution, blooming above me. I took adeep breath of the air in Faerie and sighed. Earth air just wasn’tthis refreshing.
I touched the grass and cursed—it was ofcourse not indigenous to this area. Damn Leandra for having a lairin the suburbs. I dug my fingers into the soil, reaching andreaching, until I felt it.
Navigating Faerie—any part of Faerie—waslike navigating the house you grew up in. Everything wasinstinctual, an overlay of Earth’s own structures. I sensed thedivots underground where the lairs were—there were three here, farenough apart that maybe their owners didn’t know about the others.Or maybe two of them belonged to different kinds of undergrounddwellers. I could tell Leandra’s immediately from the layout,sensed the outline of the bed she’d kissed me on.
I wiped my dirt-covered fingers off on mypants and let my feet guide me where I needed to go. Being inFaerie always gave me this dream-like dazedness, like nothing wasreal and everything was beautiful. This was how we lured humans inback in the day, when they would go into fairy circles and othertraps. It had been a while since we did that with any frequency,but the occasional human got in. As long as they didn’t eat thefood, they were fine. Mostly.
I lifted the lid of the trapdoor buried inthe dirt. Leandra’s things belonged to a different species and theywere vague in my vision, blurred outlines of reality. I pooled mypower within me and released the anchor point. Smells crashed intome, the harsh lines of Earth making my eyes water. Everything wasvivid again—the scent of a neighbor’s overturned turned trash can,the sound of a raccoon rifling through its contents. I thought I’dbe sick. There was a reason a lot of fairies preferred to spendtheir time in Faerie and not here.
Leandra was not in her lair. It was in thesame state I’d left it, my blood still staining her bed, the sheetsstill rumpled. She clearly hadn’t been here since she left me alonethat night. I cursed under my breath. I had no way of contactingher. She probably had a cell phone, but I’d be damned if I’d everwanted her number until right now. She’d been plenty good attrailing me and bothering me when she wanted my help, but now thatI needed answers from her, she was nowhere to be found.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Being thefourth-best bounty hunter in Mayfair meant little. If Allie Goddenhad said yes to her, she would’ve figured it out by now, probablyhaving Leandra impaled through the chest and being praised by themayoral council as a natural. Freakin’ witch.
A sound echoed off the wall behind me—thetrash can being moved around by something larger than a raccoon.Damn. If a human caught me lurking around a vampire lair in themiddle of the night, I’d be toast. This whole subdivision wouldfreak out over it.
Then, a trilling, squeaking sound. I pokedmy head over the top of the lair door, fingers aching against mytight grip on the ladder. There was a wet noise that made myinsides churn, the noise of something eating with voracity.Cautiously, I lifted myself over the lip of the trapdoor and let itslide back into place.
Shadows squirmed against a garage door. Iunsheathed my silver dagger and approached.
When I turned the corner, I did a doubletake. Leandra was eating the raccoon, blood dripping from her jaws,eyes bright red with bloodlust. Her dress was speckled with bloodand grime. I’d never known Leandra to wear anything other thanblack, but she looked straight out of a Renaissance fair, in apuffy-sleeved, champagne-colored dress that ended in tatters at herelbows. Her hair was wild, on every which side of her head. Andshe, Leandra, favorite of the vampire queen, was eating from thegarbage.
“Leandra?” I called, though not without fearpumping through my heart.
She turned to me and cackled, dropping thedesiccated carcass of the raccoon.
I cleared my throat, trying not to soundnervous. “What are you doing?” I asked.
An animalistic expression took over herface.
Then, she charged at me.
?
I ran. Of course I ran. I’d seen Leandratake on six vampires herself just the night before and knew I wasnot even close to a match for her. The sad thing about fairies isthat we didn’t have super speed like vampires, though. She knockedme to the ground not far from where we’d met, her teeth bared andbloody with raccoon grime.
Leandra straddled my hips on either side. Iwas about to find out if your life really flashes before your eyes,and it looked like the answer was no: the last thing I’d see wouldjust be Leandra dripping saliva and blood onto my chest, her bodyheaving with instinctual thirst.
“Please spare me,” I said, becauseapparently I’m a coward who begs when my life is on the line. “I’lldo anything.”
