Blood Lust

If Daniella had to predict her own death, it would not have been by the hands of a vampire. But Daniella was a hedgewitch and necromancer. Her talents did not lie within divination and clairvoyance, but in the conjuring and commanding of spirits and the healing of human souls.

Still, she looked between the abyssal magic that was etched under her skin and the handsome blond behind the desk in front of her. If she’d had to guess, it wouldn’t have been Death by Vampire written on her tombstone.

“I didn’t realize that owing you a favour meant owing you my life, Jed.” Her voice was flat, even to her own ears. The markings under Daniella’s skin flared and flashed, eating the fear that she felt at being in the presence of a predator.

And he was a predator.

Blue-as-an-arctic-sky eyes gleamed at her from above an alligator grin as the man swung in his chair and rose to his full height.

All vampire men with Caucasian bloodlines were blond, tall, and broad. Their women were also tall, but slender, wiry. They weren’t like the creatures in books, who could turn unsuspecting love interests into beautiful, perfect creatures of the night. No, they were an evolutionary branch, sharing a common ancestor with humans. But they were bigger, stronger, faster. The difference between tigers and domestic cats.

Jedidiah DuPoint, or Papa Jed as the locals called him, was a Sabretooth among tigers. Square shouldered, broad chested, and older than New Orleans herself, the vampire kingpin ran every vampiric operation in the state of Louisiana. Nothing happened after dark without Jed knowing about it. Nothing magical and worth knowing, that is.

The hair on the back of Daniella’s arms raised as Jedidiah circled around her. His laugh reverberated in his chest, hollow and menacing, and cold.

Vaguely, she was aware of the wild noises of the nightclub, The Dollhouse, from beyond the walls of the office. She was aware of the hundreds of voices shouting over music, of the energies and magics of their bodies as they thrashed and danced. They were almost imperceptible in the office, except that the silence of Jed moving around her made the noise beyond the walls obvious.

“No one has said that you need to die, Sugar, just that you need to pay your dues.” His thick, southern drawl was not of this time. It was sharper: cut glass and aristocratic. It seemed to rake down her spine and draw blood. Not an image that she wanted in the forefront of her mind while a vampire stood behind her back.

Daniella did not give in to the urge to look over her shoulder as he crossed behind her. She didn’t give the man the satisfaction of knowing that she felt unnerved. Another emotion for the demon that lived under her skin to gnaw contentedly at. Good riddance.

Steeling herself, she made a show of studying her long nails and said, “Forgive me, Jed. I fail to see how what you’re asking is any different from me literally dying.”

He was fast. Hands clamped down on either side of her chair, the sudden impact of his body rocking the chair forward enough to make her gasp in surprise. The vampire loomed over her back, breath catching the back of her neck and her ear, warm and humid. A low rumble filled her ears as he growled in satisfaction, catching the scent of her surprise.

Danger. Death. Run. Run. Run.

Her instincts beat the message through her body by means of her pulse, almost mechanical, as the emotional component of her fear was consumed by her demon. It was moments like this that made Daniella glad she’d fed the demon her heart. Fear would get her killed. If she ran, Jed would pounce like the animal he was. Best to sit. Best to play dead. So much of her felt like it was dead already that it didn’t make a difference.

“All I want, Daniella, is an exchange of skills. That’s what you came to us for, isn’t it? A particular skill set to help your sister and your brother-in-law. Birth certificates, Social Security Numbers, licenses, credit scores…they don’t come cheap, and forging them well enough to pass the bar is a feat second only to planting an identity into the system like it’s been there a lifetime. Seems a fair trade for a little bit of spellcraft and necromancy, don’t you think?”

In a fluid motion, Jedidiah tilted her back and spun her chair around. When he set her down, his face was inches from her own. “Of course, we made our deal based on an exchange of quality for quality. If you don’t think you can deliver your end of the bargain, just let me know. No harm done. I’m sure that we can find someone else and save your talents for another task…”

The silence between them was loaded. Daniella held her breath, waiting for the other boot to drop. When it didn’t, she said, “And the unspoken, ‘but,’ that you’re waiting for me to inquire after?”

He stepped back, circled around her again, purposefully putting her back into a position of disadvantage. He might have been testing her, or he might have just moved to a more comfortable position. It was impossible to say.

Now she did turn, in time to see him settle against the desk with one long leg crossing over the other as he braced himself against the heavy oak top. He canted his head as he looked at her like he was considering her question. That grin of his didn’t look off because of his fangs. In fact, that grin didn’t show his fangs. It simply didn’t reach his eyes. Cold and deathly still, arms and legs extended, the alligator waited for the minnow to make her move.

Having put her at a disadvantage by turning her chair around, Daniella could only listen to the vampire as he continued.

“It’s just like I said, Daniella. Quality for quality, timeliness for timeliness. It would be a shame if some general bit of maintenance slipped through the cracks. If the wrong person picked up the phone during a reference call or background check. Someone with no recollection of your brother-in-law.”

He shrugged, and the message was clear. What Papa Jed gave, Papa Jed could take away.

Shit.

Daniella stood long enough to return her chair to its proper position, buying herself time to think. She collapsed into her seat, rag-dolling, and hoping the carelessness of her gesture was more than a sordid attempt to show she was not put off her stride by the vampire king.

Lies, lies, and more lies, Ella Lanoue. Shame, shame.

She ignored her own internal commentary in favour of saying, “You want me to single-handedly stop an entire group of demons from trafficking on your turf.” Daniella crossed her arms over her chest. “If I do this, then we are more than even. I walk away from you and The Dollhouse, and we never speak to each other again.”

Jedidiah canted his head in the other direction. His grin was fixed in place, but he was thinking. “Sure, Sugar. Fair will be fair. How you do it is entirely up to you, as long as it gets done, and it can’t be traced back to me and mine. How’s that?”

“And if I die in the process? What happens to my sister and her husband, then?”

That laugh again. Ice water from the darkest caverns being poured into her bloodstream via her ears.

“Don’t die, Daniella. That’s my advice.” He reached behind him, picked up a thick ream of paper, and held it out to her: the contract that bound Daniella to a single favour of Jedidiah DuPoint’s choosing. “Go on, girl. Claim your freedom.”

Daniella took the contract, read the words that had been added since the last time she had looked at it a few months prior. An outline of her task. Signing it would magically bind her to the agreement, but it would bind Jed to his side of the bargain, too, and that was what was most important of all.

A deal with the devil to be released from another deal with the same devil.

You’re good at making deals, Ella, she told herself. Better be good at getting out of them.

She took the pen he offered her, signed her name in a flourish, and ignored the way the mechanism bit into the pad of her finger. Her own blood seeped into the page as ink, and the magic in her blood and the contract mingled and emitted a metallic tang of ozone and pennies that filled the room.

She handed it back.

“A deal’s a deal.”

Jed’s grin widened. He brought the contract to his nose and breathed in deeply while his ice-blue eyes locked onto hers. Dark pupils constricted, and he emitted another rumble. This one was satisfied. Almost a purr.

“It’s a shame that Jayden couldn’t manage to keep you, Ella. You would have made a fine little queen for the club.”

For the first time since she had stepped into the office, Daniella felt her fear and anger break over her enough to colour her expression. She sneered. “Jayden was a pig in wolf’s clothing,” she spat the words as she stood. “And I didn’t come here to talk to you about my ex or to relive whatever twisted fantasies he had in store for me.”

Jed tossed the contract on his desk behind him. “Fair dues, Sugar. But for what it’s worth, a queen is meant to be a queen. The way he treated you,” Jed shook his head. “Well, you just say the word, and I’ll do you that favour, too.”

“And owe you something else? No thanks, Jed. I’ll stick to keying his car the next time I see it in the parking lot.”

He laughed. “I like you, girl. I’ll be sad to see you go.”

She swung her bag onto her shoulder. “Are we done? You’ve given me a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it, so I need to get back before sunup.” Her mind was already setting itself to the task of generating ideas to get her out of this mess as quickly as possible.

Jed nodded and held out his hand.

It was a bad plan to shake hands with a vampire, but it was a worse plan to snub a mob boss.

His hand swallowed her own in his grasp, and he clamped down on it and pulled her a step closer. “Steady onward, Daniella Lanoue. And if I can give you a word of advice before you depart?” He dropped his head lower, his mouth by her ear as he whispered in the cool rumble of caves of ice, “Don’t fuck up.”

The vampire woman that met Daniella outside of Jed’s office and escorted her through the club could only have been about 5’9, perhaps 5’10 in height, putting her on the shorter end of the spectrum for vampires. Her iron grip steered Daniella through crowds easily, and she kept her body between Daniella’s and the bulk of the room.

“You need to stop coming here, Dani,” she said over the loud beat and under the flashing lights. “Seriously, Jayden’s here tonight, and you’re lucky he’s busy, or I’d have a hell of a time getting you out without him seeing.”

Daniella swore and pulled the hood of her jacket over her head. “Jed could have said something when he called me out. So much for his disapproval of Jayden’s behaviour. Fuckin’ favour my ass.”

“Hey,” the vampire caught her by the shoulders and pinned her against a nearby wall. If the action concerned anyone of the people in the surrounding crowd, it didn’t show. But it probably didn’t concern anyone. Not in The Dollhouse. It was the sort of club you went to when you were into the idea of being pushed up against the wall by someone. The sort of club where you could wear anything from a nurse’s uniform to shibari body suits and no one would blink, because if you were at The Dollhouse, you were there for the kind of good time you couldn’t get anywhere else.

The vampire stepped forward, teeth bared in a primitive display of dominance and disapproval. “Vampires don’t beat on their lovers, even human lovers. Not physically and not emotionally. We weed out those kinds of predators among our kind. Jayden is human. So are you. And like it or not, his behaviour is the problem of human laws. Papa Jed stepping in would be a favour, and one that you’re lucky he’s offered.”

Knowing her role and hating herself for it, Daniella tilted her head to one side, baring her neck in submission. “You’re right, Shana. I spoke out of turn.”

Shana stepped back, and looking briefly over her shoulder to scope out the room behind her, she gestured that they should carry on.

Daniella moved where she was told to move, kept her eyes down, and her shoulders drawn around her to make herself seem smaller. The pair slipped through shadows, keeping to the darker and more populated areas of the club. All the while, Shana kept her body between Daniella’s and the bar, blocking her from view, until they reached a side door. Shana swiped a card against a reader, and when the mechanism clicked and turned green, she pushed the door open.

Cool, damp air blew through Daniella as she stepped beyond the walls of the club. The silence of the outside world was jarring but welcomed. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the door. “Thanks, Shana.”

The vampire woman nodded as Daniella pulled her hood off of her head. “Sure thing. And listen, seriously, try to avoid coming back to the club, if you can. We like you, but Jayden’s Papa Jed’s human puppet. He owns the club. In the pecking order, you don’t rank.”

Daniella had always thought that she and Shana had been friends in the years that she’d dated Jayden. When they’d broken up, Daniella realized that she’d been wrong. Any vampire that she’d associated with during her relationship was loyal to Papa Jed, and Jayden was Papa Jed’s primary human asset. In retrospect, it made sense that none of the vampires she’d been friends with had stepped forward to help her.

And yet, somehow, the comment stung more than she’d expected. Another reminder that, actually, all of her friends had been Jayden’s friends, bought and paid for with dirty money.

She looked down at the asphalt of the parking lot and nodded. “Noted.” Her throat closed up, giving her a limited number of words before grief cut her voice off completely. She said, “Next time, I’ll call.” Turning, Daniella made her way to her bike, an old 1970 Electra-Glide. Her dad’s old bike. The only thing pre-Jayden that she’d managed to keep and still get enjoyment out of.

“Dani—”

“Go fuck yourself, Shana.” She threw her leg over her bike and gave the woman a one-fingered salute.

The wind as she drove cleared her airways, knocked the tears from her eyes, and left her feeling clear-headed. It’s why she loved the bike, even as a child. It’s why her father had loved it. “You always know where you stand when you’re riding it,” he’d say to her. “You know your own balance and reflexes, and thin air, are the only things between you and hitting the ground at 60mph.”

It was exhilarating. The risk of it, the freedom, the adrenaline, and the wild abandon. Things that fed her demon, but left enough behind that she could almost feel alive.

She rode until the lights of the city faded into suburbia, slowed her speed when suburbia took on the familiar airs of the last stretch of home and parked up in front of a bland, relatively new building that matched the other bland and relatively new homes of her neighbors.

Small and beige, like most things about her life at the moment, the house was two storeys. A make-shift master suite was in a lofted upstairs. Beneath it, the kitchen, a living room-dining room combo, and a guest bathroom that doubled as a small laundry room off the kitchen.

The front door opened into the living space, and Daniella chucked her bag on the floor next to the door. “Mona, I’m home.”

From beneath the couch, a black cat with a small white locket emerged. She made herself into shapes as she crossed the dark living room and then chirruped loudly in greeting.

Daniella scooped up the cat, who immediately grabbed ahold of her face with its paws and sniffed at her noisily.

You don’t smell like sex. Why are you late? The accusation was delivered by a clipped, prim little voice in Daniella’s head, and a rather unhappy, screechy yowl more typical of a cat.

“You realize that is wildly intrusive and rude, right?”

I’m your familiar. Intrusive is my job. You smell like club and no sex. The cat jumped out of her arms and paced on the air at shoulder height. You were at The Dollhouse again, weren’t you? You keep going back there. One day, you’re not going to be lucky--

“I get it, Mona.” Daniella shrugged out of her jacket, letting it drop on the floor before doing the same with her hoodie. “Draw me a bath, will you?”

Mona grumped and grumbled, both in Daniella’s head and aloud as burbling murmurs and gruffs. Nevertheless, she trotted in the direction of the main bedroom. Not the lofted space that Daniella used for herself, but rather the actual downstairs bedroom. She pushed the door open and disappeared behind it.

Daniella made her way to the kitchen to make some coffee.

A good soak and a cup of coffee would put her to rights. She’d be able to think then. Get out of the headspace that Shana and Jed had put her in, and maybe think about how to solve this issue with the fucking demons.

Since when were incubi and succubi her responsibility? Of course, she didn’t know that’s what they were. They could be any sort of demons, really. But most of the demons in these parts were of the lust-driven variety.

Since she was a soft fucking touch, that’s when. If she’d just let Thalia and Bellamy sort out their own shit, this wouldn’t have happened. She wouldn’t have asked Jed the favour to begin with, and wouldn’t have owed him anything in return.

But Thalia was so happy, and Bellamy was so good to her sister...and someone needed to be happy in love, even if that someone was obviously not Daniella.

With the coffee machine running, Daniella stood listlessly in the relative silence of her kitchen. As an afterthought, she grabbed a Go-Gurt squirty pouch from the fridge. She tore the packet open with her teeth and sucked down the contents while her coffee pot churned and percolated.

When the carafe caught enough of the brew to make a full cup, she poured herself one and headed to the bathroom.

Steam and the smell of lavender and sandalwood wafted from the half-open door. Daniella pushed it open the rest of the way, carefully side stepping and cat-walking over the mess of symbols and magical artifacts sprawling on the floor. Her crafting room was better suited for the space that had been designed for the bedroom, but the adjoining bathroom had the master suite tub, while the upstairs only had a free standing shower.

Sometimes, a bath was worth stepping over magical caltrops and mines.

Mona was sitting on the bathroom counter when she entered. The bath and mirror were lined by unscented candles.

Anything else?

“Just guard the house, Mona. Thanks.”

The cat vanished, leaving Daniella to undress.

She turned off the light. In the steamed, full-length mirrors and under the soft glow of the dozen or so candles, she saw the shadows of her body. Too thin. Looking down at herself confirmed it. Shadows fell at sharp angles on her hips. She ran dark nails down pale skin, following the abyssal letters that flashed and faded under her skin. Like scars, in the right light, those marks just disappeared. In the wrong light...Daniella had plenty of scars, the deepest of them not necessarily visible to the naked eye. But the pearlescent flashes over her skin did not compare to the sigil and markings of her demon.

Borrowed magic to help her heal. Another favour, owed to someone that made Jed look like the minnow. Except instead of an alligator, he was floating under the gaze of a basking shark.

She sighed as she hit the hot water, a shiver running through her whole body. Her dark hair pooled around her as she sank down to her chin, then passed her ears, until only her knees and her face were peaking out of the water. She held her breath and submerged.

There was no way that she was going to be able to fulfill Papa Jed’s request by herself. Not even if she was the luckiest bitch alive. Too many variables, and too much discrepancy in power.

What she needed was a way to level the playing field, and as a necromancer, she was more than capable of that.

She lifted her hands over the surface of the water, and from her place beneath, she studied the ever-present, ever-shifting magic that lay dormant within them. Hell, if she played her cards right, she could rid herself of two devils instead of one. If she was careful in the way she worded her spell, and even more so during her negotiations, she might just be able to fulfill all of her debts in one fell swoop.

If Jed wanted her to get rid of demons, she would get rid of demons, and she knew exactly which demon to summon to get the job done.…