SIX
Phoenyx idly toyed with her mother's golden charm. Absentmindedly, she slid the delicate chain over and across her lips, as she eyed the sleeping vampire, shackled to her bed with silver chains. They wouldn’t hurt him––well, not much, but they would weaken his power somewhat if he turned out to be an ancient. Something told her that wouldn’t be the case in this situation.
The vampire she was looking for was still out there somewhere, so this was something different. She kept replaying the night's events over and over again in her mind. What happened in the alley was beyond anything her mind could fully process alone, which was why she needed Hutton. Too many things just didn't add up in the equation, and yet, everything came together too perfectly. The nest, the trap, Spider's involvement, and then there was this incoherent gem lying in her bed.
The vampire stirred ever so slightly. He’d been sleeping, yes, sleeping, ever since she’s gotten him back to her apartment, with Cortez’s help. Cortez had left a while ago, to find Hutton for her.
She shook her head as the vampire tugged slightly at his chains. It looked like he was dreaming. Of course, that was impossible, because he was a fucking vampire––and dead. However, a lot of impossible things seemed to be happening.
It was common knowledge that the dead don’t need to sleep, hence, they don’t dream. However, this enigma had been tossing and turning in his slumber for more than an hour already.
Interesting.
Across the room, Phoenyx's phone buzzed an erratic dance across the top of her dresser. She stood gracefully and made her way over to answer it. "It's about time," she ground out. "I could have been dead by now."
Hutton sighed on the other end of the line. "Cortez had me call. When you rang prior, I’d been preoccupied. You sound positively frantic."
She chortled. "That's a bit of an understatement, H. Listen, I have a question."
When Hutton didn't say anything, she continued. "Do vampires feel––pain?"
An explosion of laughter nearly deafened her. "Phoenyx, that's ridiculous. Vampires are dead. Hence, they cannot feel. There is some discomfort for them, should they be wounded but––well, these are things you already know. Have your years of grueling vampire education been for nothing? Is this a joke?"
Phoenyx snorted derisively. "No, H, this is not a joke. You see, at this very moment in time, there is a vampire tied to my bed, who not only seems to feel, but apparently, he dreams as well."
Silence. Simple silence.
Suddenly, Hutton replied. "It's…well, it’s impossible."
"No," Phoenyx snapped. "It's not impossible. It's highly possible in fact, and it’s lying in my bed."
"But how?" Hutton whispered in awe.
"Well, shit!" She said. "If you don't know, then we're screwed. Isn't there anything about all this in one of your dusty old books?"
"There must be a mistake," Hutton sputtered. "You're mistaken, Phoenyx."
She paused for a long moment before speaking. "I felt him, Grimshaw."
Her lifelong teacher and protector laughed softly under his breath. "That's nothing new. You sense vampires all the time. It's part of your very remarkable skillset."
"I felt his pain!" She shouted, wanting him to listen to her––to believe her. Her temper was rising. "It was a deep, intense, agonizing, crippling pain that made me want to physically lose my lunch."
"Extraordinary." He breathed.
“Yeah, groovy,” She said sarcastically before waving a hand in the air and grimacing. "And this glowy, windy thing happened when our hands touched."
"What?"
Phoenyx growled. "Can you just bring your wrinkled, English ass over here, please? Right away!"
"Cortez and I are around the corner. I'll be right there," he muttered. "And my ass is not wrinkled, thank you. There are some who find I have a very pleasant ass."
She snapped the phone shut without saying goodbye. Lips pressed together, she aimed her eyes skyward and breathed deeply in through her nose and out through her mouth. Meditation was her savior. Without it, she would be a walking mass of jumbled emotions and nerves.
Her brows furrowed with concentration. She was trying to block out all thoughts from her mind to help her maintain a state of blank bliss, but her brain just wouldn’t stop working. She had to find the missing link.
In her experience, the most difficult riddles had the most obvious answers, she knew that, but in this situation, she wasn’t so sure.
Two more breaths. In and out. Time slowed to a near stand-still. She was almost there. The room quieted, her mind slowed, and her heart began to beat evenly again. The world stopped spinning, and Phoenyx was beginning to feel more and more relaxed.
Suddenly, a pain, like a thousand blades sliding into her flesh, knocked the breath from her on an inhale. An ear-splitting cry rattled the meditative silence, and Phoenyx fell to her knees in agony. Clutching her chest, as if a fire burned beneath her skin there, she weakly turned in the direction of her enigma. Somehow, he’d broken through the silver chains on his wrists. Like a caged lion, he tore at his chest, through his shirt, fangs gleaming like glittering opals as he roared. She could feel his pain and fear as plainly as she could see it manifesting into his every action and expression.
Recognizing the familiar tug of an electrical current between them, her green eyes locked with his. Her entire skull tingled from the sparks that were going off between them. She’d never been more in-tune with another person before. It was as though he was a part of her, and she was a part of him.
Vaguely, she could hear someone pounding on her apartment door and calling her name frantically, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. The pull was too strong. Roaring and raging in her bed, the vampire’s eyes went glassy, as though his mind had left him in that moment, and he tore open the front of his shirt, leaving gashes in the already raw flesh there. What Phoenyx saw held her perfectly still.
“Phoenyx!”
It was Hutton. He had finally arrived, but it was too late. Her entire being was being helplessly drawn to the vampire. Recklessly, she ignored the sounds of concern coming from the hallway.
The vampire was panting with agitation; the raw, tattooed markings on his chest seemed to have been burned into the flesh there, red and hot around the edges, suddenly smoking. Welts, a fingers width deep, rose upward from his ink-blackened skin. However, the closer she got, the less agitated the vampire became, and the more visible the currents of electricity she was feeling were to the naked eye. It surrounded them like a curtain curling in the wind.
“Fresa!” Cortez shouted, sounding desperate to get inside.
She could hear the doorknob jiggling erratically, but all she could think about was touching this monster, laying her hands on his pale skin that seemed to be steaming. She was being drawn again. She, the moth, and he, the flame––burning so brightly it hurt her to even look at him. His eyes never left hers. Those impossibly stormy eyes held her captive as her hand stretched out to him magnetically.
Phoenyx knew what she had to do. She couldn’t bear to watch him suffer a moment longer. She placed the palm of her hand gently at his shoulder and eased him back on the bed. Where she touched his skin, it crackled and sparked. The jolt it caused rushed up her arm and straight into her heart. The vampire retracted his fangs, gasping, tears welling up in his eyes at the gentleness she was showing him.
“Lay still,” she whispered.
The vampire complied.
His tousled, dark brown hair stuck up in odd angles, some of it plastered to his slick skin. He was sweating. She stood, transfixed, as she witnessed phenomenon after phenomenon. It was true that some vampires had the ability to squeeze out a tear or two after they fed, but this vampire was obviously undernourished, and yet, he cried freely. A sheen of light pink colored moisture had collected on his forehead and collarbone. His glazed, steel blue eyes were watching her carefully as she stood there, trying to figure it all out, but coming up empty. He was as mystified as she was.
Hutton and Cortez had broken through the door, but the electricity surrounding her and the vampire was so thick, there was no way for them to come through. Phoenyx turned her head and could faintly make out Hutton’s mouth as it moved quickly, but there was no sound. The curtain had enclosed them, and the room was silent, save for the sound of their breathing and the static electricity.
***
“What’s going on?” Cortez shouted.
Hutton threw an arm out to stop him from rushing forward. The last thing he needed now was to have a chargrilled Sand Demon on his hands. The scene they’d barged in on was something straight out of fantasy novels. Phoenyx was standing with her back to them, her body aglow with current. Her strawberry-blonde hair rippled out behind her and up over her head, as though she was standing in the eye of a storm, but there was no wind. At least, not where they were standing.
“Grimshaw,” Cortez snapped. “Aren’t you going to do something? He’s broken free of his chains. He could kill her.”
Hutton’s shock wore off instantly at the words and he found himself in a state of unimaginable panic. Taking a step forward proved futile, as whatever force was present, did not want anyone to interrupt what was about to happen. He grimaced.
“Jane! Jane, can you hear me?” He shouted as she turned to narrow her eyes at him. A kind of electric haze had encircled Phoenyx and the vampire, cocooning them from the rest of the room. The look on her face told him everything he needed to know.
Hutton gritted his teeth. “Don’t do this. Don’t expose yourself.”
But it was too late.
***
“Easy,” Phoenyx breathed, placing her other hand, palm down, above his heart.
She shouldn’t have been doing what she was about to do, it went against everything she’d ever been taught since the day Hutton brought her to Crystal Haven to learn what it meant to be The Phoenyx, but something told her she wouldn’t get any answers until she did.
Closing her eyes tightly, she focused on opening her third eye and her heart chakra before allowing every emotion coursing through the vampire’s dead body into hers. She accepted it. She welcomed it, and watched as pure relief replaced the expression of agony on his face. The rush of impact from the force of his feelings, as they poured into every sensory outlet in her body, was so great it sent Phoenyx hurtling backward, breaking through the electrical curtain and putting her through her apartment wall. There goes my deposit.
“Phoenyx!” Hutton shouted urgently as he and Cortez rushed to her side, holding her head up as it lolled on her neck weakly.
Her eyes met his and her face crumbled beneath the emotions. Her eyes wavered as tears began to flow with a freedom she hadn’t allowed in years. Her chest was teeming with pain, betrayal, rage, jealousy, devotion, loyalty, and anguish––she couldn’t stop the emotions from surging through her. There had been too much information for her to process, but there was a real story there, lying within that vampire’s cold, dead heart.
Phoenyx reached up and cupped the back of Hutton’s hand with her own, using his strength to help sit her up. The pounding in her head made the backs of her eyes throb relentlessly. She turned her head in the direction of the bed and saw the vampire, finally at peace, lying spent against the pillows, his chest evenly rising and falling with the shirt still open against his ribs.
Pulling herself up, she leaned on Hutton and Cortez as they aided her in approaching the bed. As her faculties and energy slowly came back to her, she gazed down at the limp vampire and slowly wiped at the tears on her face. Her fingers trembled when she reached down and she lightly traced the tattoo inked into his chest, the letters bold and angry.
JUDAS.
Who would do this? Who could do this? She thought to herself. Depending on the wound, vampires healed almost instantly.
“Looks like The Chemist’s work.” Cortez said, almost to himself.
Phoenyx’s eyes snapped like cables in his direction. “What? Who’s The Chemist?”
Looking up distractedly, Cortez shrugged. “The Chemist. He’s got a vamp tattoo shop that just opened about a month ago. He figured out a way to permanently tattoo vampires by mixing colloidal silver into the ink. It stops the healing process, but apparently, it’s excruciating. Apparently, he used to be a chemist before he got turned. He does Spider’s crew. Sick bastards.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Hutton interjected quietly.
Phoenyx turned slowly, eyes trained on her mentor. “I had no choice. You saw how much pain he was in.”
“He’s a vampire. Your job is to kill them, not sympathize with them. You kill his kind.” Hutton snapped.
“What did you do exactly?” Cortez asked, his confusion obvious.
“A lot of good he’d be to us dead.” Phoenyx snapped, ignoring Cortez entirely.
Neither of them were the kind of people to back down from confrontation, especially when they thought they were right. Phoenyx and Hutton kept their eyes locked, but said nothing in response. As much as they believed their own point of view to be the right one, arguing about it now would only bring them trouble. And one thing they couldn’t do, was allow Cortez to know that she was an empath. It was too dangerous to share that information with anyone they couldn’t trust, no matter what the scenario. It wouldn’t end well if they did. There was no telling what would happen if any of her enemies found out that she could be weakened in such a way––and so quickly.
Shaking off her irritation at the entire situation, Phoenyx took a long, ragged breath.
“This,” Phoenyx said quickly, changing the subject to one they could discuss. She gestured to the vampire with her free hand. “This was what I was talking about earlier. Any idea as to what’s going on here, H?”
“I––I can’t be sure.” Hutton murmured, clearly trying to come out of the angry fog that had settled within him.
After pulling from their arms slowly, an ache burning deep within her shoulder, where her back had hit the wall, Phoenyx reached for her leather jacket and started walking towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Hutton called after her.
She paused in the doorway, half looking back over her shoulder. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Are you coming, or not?”
Phoenyx didn’t have to say another word for Hutton to come to the full realization that she was going straight to The Order. There was no other choice.
Phoenyx heard Hutton clear his throat gruffly before she caught him motioning with his eyes to the elephant in the room. She cursed inwardly and turned to face her informant. “Cortez, can you stay with him?”
“What?!” Cortez’s eyes went wide as saucers before he pointed at her incredulously. “Are you sick? Did you see what just happened here? If he could do that to you, there’s no telling what this pasty motherfucker’s ass could do to me! I’m a Sand Demon, drawn to playgrounds, yo. I don’t babysit animals of prey.”
“He’s sleeping,” Phoenyx said, reassuring him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. Cortez didn’t know it, but she was sending calming sensations straight into his body with just her touch. “He’ll be sleeping for a while, and I promise we won’t be long. Bar the door and make sure nothing and no one can come in. I’m counting on you, C.”
The Sand Demon’s shoulders slumped forward, and he nodded reluctantly. “Okay, but you owe me, fresa.”
Turning, she eyed Hutton wearily. There was still anger hanging between them, she could almost see it suspended there, but she pushed it aside. With a hand on her hip, she lifted her chin in Hutton’s direction. “You ready?”
With his mouth set in a grim line, Hutton ran a hand over his salt and pepper goatee before he nodded his head and moved in Phoenyx’s direction. She knew that no matter how angry they were with one another, it wouldn’t stick. Besides, they had bigger problems.
The council members had to know more about what was going on. The Order of the Flame couldn’t have gotten this far in the world without having some kind of failsafe in place, should something like this arise. They would find a solution, and she would help execute it, as she had always done. And if they didn’t find one––well, they had their work cut out for them.
Shit was about to get real.