Chapter 14

Halo didn’t like the insinuation that he would be rejected for taking in tainted energy, no matter how much of a possibility it was. He especially didn’t like it said in front of Felice. He could tell just by her expression that she was hurt and felt guilty for being the source of that energy. His first instinct was to comfort her, which took him by surprise. He wasn’t the comforting type. He usually let people take care of themselves. But Felice was different. She was more fragile—in spite of all her strength. It was a compelling juxtaposition. On the one hand, he felt the overwhelming need to take care of her; on the other, he knew she would be all right without him.

What he didn’t understand was why that irked him so much. He preferred his women to operate independent of him. It made it easier when he walked away from them.

But he wasn’t ready to walk away from Felice—another thing that surprised him. She had been convenient these past few days—a ready source of sex and lust. He had figured that they would go their separate ways the minute they got out of that mess. But he wasn’t ready for that to happen. He craved getting to know her outside of the pressures of life or death. He wondered if she would want him now, which explained why he had instinctively demanded she respond to him outside of the stressful situation. He wanted to know if she would still want him.

He could tell that she did, and it gave him immediate and baffling comfort. Why should it matter so much to him? He couldn’t figure it out. And why was he spending so much time thinking about it? Halo was a man of instinct. He went wherever his impulses took him. If his impulse was to stay with her and play around with her some more, then that was what he would do.

Besides, he was tempted by the idea of taking her energy when she was clean. Taking it when she had been dirty had been an amazing high—one he was still swimming in. He wondered if the effect would be the same later on, when she was clean again.

But he would have to wait some time to find out. First, she would need a few more days away from the heroin to be considered clean. Second, it would take time before her energy stores were replenished. To take from her again too soon could be dangerous for her. Especially in light of the fact that she was wounded and needed all of her energy to heal. That meant about two weeks, maybe three.

He felt a severe itch under his skin when he thought of waiting that long to taste her again. He didn’t know if that was the taint inside of him—the new part of himself that didn’t want to take care of his energy source—or if it was because she was so damn delightful he was impatient to taste her again. He shouldn’t feel that way. He was brimming with her energy already, even though it was tainted. He shouldn’t be thinking about his next feed already, no matter how compelling the source.

Halo moved over to Felice and took her hand in his. He encouraged her to lean back in the bed, propping it up so he could see into her face and eyes better. He kissed her temple, wondering at his own tenderness. Then he refused to think about it anymore. He would let his instincts take control where she was concerned. He wouldn’t overthink it, and he wouldn’t fear them. He feared nothing. Not even flirting with sycophanthropy. He had done what was needed, would feel for a human whatever he wanted to feel. Fuck everyone else if they didn’t understand that.

“You should go clean up,” Felice said to him. “You’re covered in blood.”

“In a minute. I want to hear what the doc has to say.”

“You heard her. I need to go for an X-ray first. That’ll take time.”

“No, it won’t. Look around. You’re the only patient here. There won’t exactly be a line of people ahead of you.”

“Still, I’m fine by myself,” she said bravely, although it was obvious to him that she wasn’t all that fine.

“Trying to get rid of me?” he asked, partially teasing and partially irked by the idea.

“No! Not at all. I’m just…you heard her. You ought to clean up and find yourself a clean source of energy. I don’t want you sitting here swimming in the poison I gave you.”

He growled low in his throat. “I wish everyone would stop telling me what to do. I am aware of my energy situation. I’ll handle it. But not until you’re taken care of.”

“I’ll be fine,” she reassured him.

“Shut the fuck up. I’m staying. Get used to it.”

She smiled then. Laughed. “Only you could make an act of nobility sound offensive.”

He felt himself grinning in response. “Yeah well. Gotta love me for being true to myself.”

“You know what…funnily enough, I do. I respect you a great deal for being who you are with no apologies to anyone else. I still don’t have that strength as consistently as I would like.”

“I’ll teach you how,” he said, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. He tousled her hair with his big hand. She seemed so small to him now, sitting there like a wounded puppy. The instinct to nurture her was strong inside of him.

They came and took her to X-ray, and he followed every step of the way. He found himself feeling it every time she winced or groaned getting up and down from the X-ray table. She was really feeling the pain now. Adrenaline had kept it at bay for quite some time. Now that she was sitting still and coming down from the high of it, she was swimming in the aftermath.

They were back in the medical bay waiting for the doctor when Felice said, “You don’t have to—”

“If you tell me I don’t have to wait with you one more time I’m going to strip you down and fuck you right here on this gurney.”

She gasped a little, then blushed and chuckled.

“You have quite a way about you when it comes to convincing others to see your point of view. It’s very…unique, to say the least.”

“Yeah well, I’m me. I make no apologies for who and what I am.”

“This I know on a visceral level. I’m not judging you at all. Just making observations.”

“Good. You keep observing. I want you to understand me.”

“Do you? I would think that you wouldn’t care if I did or did not.”

“Yeah well, in this case I do. Just you. Everyone else can go to hell.”

“What makes me so special?”

He didn’t have an immediate answer for that. He didn’t know himself, so how could he explain it to her?

“You just are. Now shut up and relax. I can tell you’re in pain.”

She rested back and didn’t argue with him. Her lids drifted closed and he pulled up a chair so he could sit and hold her hand while they waited.

It seemed like it took fucking forever for the doctor to get there. Halo was just about to go raise holy hell and demand she be seen when the doctor walked into the medical bay. Felice’s eyes flew open immediately; it was obvious that she had not fallen asleep, had merely been resting.

The news wasn’t good. The doctor had to perform surgery. The bullet was too close to a major artery and nerve cluster. If they didn’t remove it she could be in danger or could feel immense pain the rest of her life.

Felice paled at the mention of surgery, but she took it like a champ. And unlike the interminable wait for the initial doctor’s visit, they whisked her away for surgery with incredible speed, which made Halo worry about how critical it all really was. She had come within millimeters of puncturing a major artery, and unlike him, who could walk away from a slice to his carotid artery, she could have bled out in minutes with her fragile human body unable to compensate.

The thought stressed him out considerably. He wasn’t a total prick after all. It mattered if a life was lost. Especially such a bright and effervescent life. The world would be a much paler place without Felice. Even though he hadn’t even known of her existence a few days ago, he still believed her loss would have been a loss to all societies. Vampire included.

After all, there was something about her that had made her a target in the vampire world. Or at least in the sycophants’ world. He would find out what that was. He would kill every phant that needed to be killed in order to keep her safe. In order to find out what it was that had made her a target in the first place.

She must have seen something. Something she didn’t realize was important. It was the only thing he could think of. Whatever it was that made her a threat to a sycophant like Roth was no doubt a crucial detail. The only way she could be a threat to Roth would be if she threatened his source of capital, which for sycophants usually meant trading in drugs, money, or humans. Sycophants were masters of drug running, money laundering, and human slavery. These were their three key forms of solvency. Threaten any one of them, and they would seek out immediate retribution.

But Felice was just a small business owner, running a tiny little antiques store in Upstate New York. Not even close to vampire central. Then again, they had been held captive upstate. It had taken about an hour and a half to get back to the city. Perhaps Roth had branched out.

There was no telling what Roth was doing. There was no telling how he had managed to finagle a position by Draz’s side so quickly. There were a dozen mysteries and no answers. Halo was thinking himself in circles, something he wasn’t used to doing. Oh, he was used to empathizing with his marks in order to hunt them down and figure out what their next instinctive move would be, but he didn’t normally bother with wondering why his marks did what they did. It usually didn’t matter to him because he was just going to kill them anyway. But knowing what Roth was thinking was crucial to saving Felice and that mattered to Halo.

Halo was wearing himself out as he paced the hallway. Then he gave up with a “fuck it” and left the hospital floor. He went up to the main business floor where the queen’s offices were. As he stepped off the elevator and crossed the room past a sea of cubicles, he was aware of silence falling and felt the vampires around him staring at him.

It was no wonder. Dirty as he was, they could all feel it. Sense it. Smell it. According to vampire code, they ought to kill him for being a sycophant—never mind that he had tasted bad energy only once. They didn’t know that. For all they knew he had spent a week sipping at the energy of junkies or alcoholics or fast-food foodies. The druggies were of course the worst source of energy, but the others were capable of being just as tainted, depending on the severity of their habits.

Halo was known by reputation, so it didn’t surprise him that none of the vampires had the balls to get in his way as he walked right up to the queen’s offices. That and the fact that he looked like hell, still not having cleaned himself up. He’d been cut and shot and basically beaten up, and it showed. It was no doubt an intimidating picture.

But it was not going to be all that easy. The queen had a guard—two of them to be exact. In order to get to her he had to go through them. He knew both men, knew their impressive skill sets. Just as he knew they weren’t going to let him anywhere near their queen without a fight. His best bet was a blitz attack, marching up to them before they got a chance to really read his energy. He bypassed the queen’s personal assistant, Darcy, and walked right up to the guards. He took the first down with a gagging punch to the throat. Then he ringed a burly arm around the other guard’s neck and dazed him with a knee to his face. Both men fell to their knees, the pure power of Halo’s strikes knocking the wind out of them before they even had a chance to brace themselves. They hadn’t been prepared for a familiar face, a face usually training them and working on their side, coming to attack them.

He didn’t want to hurt them really, so he didn’t do anything like break their necks. He just wanted them stunned enough that he could get by them. He was a little disappointed in how easily they went down. He would have to talk to Danton about that.

Halo kicked them over, pushing them out of the way of the door, whistling softly the entire time.

“Sorry, boys. I’ll take you out for a beer later,” he said to them.

Then he walked into the queen’s office.

Simone looked up from the conversation she was having with Rafe DaSilva—an austere vampire who was one of the queen’s closest confidants. Her words seemed to die in her throat as she took him in. Since Rafe was sitting with his back to Halo, he didn’t see him approaching the queen. But he did react when the queen gasped at Halo’s appearance.

“Halo! What in Hades happened to you?” she demanded of him.

Rafe had jumped up and spun about, his narrowed cool gray eyes on Halo. Halo knew the minute Rafe got a read on his energy.

“Simone! Get out of here!” Rafe barked as he gathered a ball of electrical energy between his hands.

“Wait!” Halo said, holding out a hand to stay them. “Let me explain.”

“Explain? You’re a sycophant! There’s nothing to explain!” Rafe said right before he let the energy pulse fly in Halo’s direction.

It hit with a fury. Rafe was powerful—one of the vampires who could honestly give Halo a run for his money, the queen herself being another. He was seriously outgunned with the two of them there, so he knew talking fast was the only way of surviving this encounter, especially given his battered body.

He wished the queen had been alone. This would have gone much more smoothly.

“I am not a sycophant,” Halo countered, making no aggressive moves although it went against every instinct he had to protect himself. Any aggressive action and they wouldn’t believe a word he said.

This time the queen built an energy pulse between her hands and Halo braced himself. This was going to hurt like a bitch.

“I’ve only taken tainted energy once. I can purge it and get clean again. That’s what I’m going to do,” Halo insisted.

“Why should we believe a word you say?” the queen demanded of him as she let the energy pulse fly. It blew Halo off his feet, sending him smacking up against a wall. He realized he had been lucky to have made it as far into the building as he had. He also realized how lax security was that he’d even made it past the front desk. Hell, they had given him an access card. No doubt it was because they were familiar with him—and they feared him. Roth was right. If anyone could easily get close enough to the queen to kill her, Halo could. He had been the perfect choice. The only error in Roth’s thinking was that the strength and cunning Halo would need to get the queen had also allowed him to escape before Roth had the chance to complete his conversion process. After all, now he knew it took more than one hit of tainted energy to change a vampire from lawful to sycophant. It probably took a willing mindset as well. Halo was fighting his conversion every step of the way. Most vampires who gave in surrendered all the way, embracing the evil that came with feeding on poison.

“Because I’m not fighting back. I could have taken you out by now and you know it. While your back was turned I could have blasted you both with energy, taking you completely by surprise before you even realized what I was. Something Roth was counting on when he made me drink from a poisoned well.”

Rafe had been building his second energy pulse when the name struck him. He closed his fists and the ball of energy disappeared, absorbing back inside of the man forming it.

“Roth?” he asked roughly. “What does he have to do with this?”

As Halo picked himself up off the floor, he rapidly explained what had transpired over the past few days. Midway through the story the stunned queen took a seat in the chair Rafe had abandoned. Rafe came up beside her, slipping a comforting hand around the back of her neck. They were not a couple, more like brother and sister, and they took great solace in each other when it was needed. Halo had never envied their relationship—until that moment. He didn’t understand why, he just suddenly did.

“All of that…just to get to me?” the queen asked numbly.

“An intricate plan with a lot of holes in it, thank god,” Rafe said. “Roth wasn’t counting on you having the self-control that you did. Which isn’t surprising. You’re not exactly known for your self-control.”

Halo smiled with indolent mirthlessness. “I guess I got lucky, huh?”

“Or Roth was unlucky. But what about the girl? How does she fit into all this? Luck of the draw?”

“Roth alluded to something more,” Halo said. “And the more I think about it the more I’m positive she was a specific target. They could have fed me any number of deeply poisoned junkies who would have been delighted to do the deed. They chose an innocent. A clean innocent.”

“Maybe it was to gain your sympathy,” the queen ventured.

“Ha! When have you ever known me to be sympathetic?”

The queen narrowed keen, ocean-green eyes on Halo.

“But it worked, didn’t it? You feel something for this girl.”

Halo scoffed.

“I only care that she isn’t being swept up in something just so Roth can get control of me.”

“You’d feel responsible if he did,” the queen pressed.

“I’m not responsible for the acts of a madman,” Halo denied.

The queen pursed her lips and eyed him knowingly for a moment. He felt an uncontrollable urge to shove her over in her chair but somehow managed to keep from doing so.

“You need to purge yourself of this tainted energy now,” Rafe said firmly. “You can’t afford to swim in it a second longer. Then you need to take from a clean source.”

“I will. As soon as—”

“Now,” Rafe stressed. “And get cleaned up while you’re at it. The girl isn’t going anywhere and there’s nothing you can do for her by standing around waiting. I’d say we should go back to the warehouse where he was keeping you right away, but it’s not going anywhere and Roth has no doubt cleared out by now.”

“No doubt,” Halo agreed. He scratched an itch where the blood had dried on his skin. He really could use a shower. And Rafe was right. The longer he sat brimming with this energy inside of him the more dangerous it was.

But first he needed to expel the energy he had taken in. There were only three ways to do that. By exertion—i.e., sending out pulse after pulse or other methods of burning energy; by sharing…and he doubted any vampire would want to share this kind of energy; or by returning the energy to the source it had come from. He ought to do that. He ought to give back her energy so she could use it to recover more quickly. But she might be in surgery for hours and he needed to clean up his act now.

He would go to the target range. After a shower.

He grunted in dismissal and turned to leave.

“Halo, tell us where this warehouse is so we can check it out for clues to Roth’s whereabouts,” Rafe said.

“Not without me,” Halo said with finality. “I want a look at the entire setup, not just what I’ve seen of it. I’m going there and I’m going to use what I find to hunt that fucker down.”

“Then get cleaned up. Exchange your energy. We’ll go as soon as you’re ready,” Rafe said.

Halo hesitated, pulled in two directions. On the one hand, he wanted Roth. Bad. On the other, he wanted to be there when Felice woke up from her surgery. He realized he couldn’t have both and he had to make a choice. In the end it was a simple decision. She needed him. She needed him to hunt Roth and find a way to protect her from him ever going after her again. She needed that more than she needed him waiting around for her to wake up.

“I’m going with you,” Halo repeated. “Just…give me a minute. I need about a half hour.”

“I’ll gather Danton and a group of authoritarians to go with us. Just in case Roth’s forces are still there. He might have any number of traps set up for you and anyone who comes searching for him,” Rafe said.

Danton was the head of the authoritarians, those who policed lawful vampires and made sure they adhered to societal expectations. Unlike hunters who hunted down the vilest of sycophants, the authoritarians were responsible for those who crossed the line but not necessarily into sycophanthropy. They of course had the right to kill any sycophant they came across, just as any lawful vampire did. It was every vampire’s duty to eliminate any and all sycophants they encountered.

“Fine. As long as they understand that Roth is mine.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to have some help with this?” Rafe asked.

“I don’t play well with others,” Halo said tersely.

Rafe nodded and Halo continued on his way out of the door.