Dead and Gone (Grave Talker Book 2) Read online

  To him, it was clearly a signal he was fucked. What had he done to get on Ingrid’s bad side?

  She shot him a withering glare before turning back to me. “We heard about the attack. Word is, it was a bunch of un-nested vamps who did it. I swear, the last thing we need is the ABI up our asses, and this is a sure-fire way to bring that heat. I swear to fucking Christ himself that if this hurts my queen, things are gonna get dicey.”

  It still cracked me up that Ingrid looked about eight years old but had the mouth of a well-seasoned trucker with a solid sailor dialect to boot.

  “I didn’t know there were un-nested vamps in the city,” I admitted, wondering how much had changed since I’d been locked up. “I thought that was, you know, frowned upon?”

  I knew it was more than frowned upon. The ABI was strict as hell about ghouls and vampires being un-nested. There was an approval process, and most just got locked up on general principle. If a vampire or a ghoul was too feral to be in a nest, they had some serious issues and shouldn’t mix with the mundane public.

  “Yeah. Well, things have changed since you’ve been gone. Stuff’s getting weird. A few months ago, there was an attack just up the road in Ascension. Nested ghouls attacking other arcaners with no real reason why. It didn’t make any sense then, and it sure as shit doesn’t make any now.”

  I shot a look at Bishop. Why hadn’t he told me about this?

  “Don’t look at me like that. I was just excited to have you free. I didn’t think I wouldn’t have the time to say anything. A lot has happened, Darby. A lot.”

  Ingrid huffed. “I thought you just loved to spill, La Roux. Isn’t that what you’re known for?”

  Bishop rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You can’t still be blaming me for Thomas leaving. I saved his stupid life. You should be thanking me.”

  I’d heard Ingrid wax poetic about her favorite nestmate Thomas. He’d left the Dubois nest a century before I was even a twinkle in my dad’s eye.

  Holy shit. I shot an appraising glance to Bishop. “You’re the reason Ingrid hates the ABI? Sweet lord, man. And she let you live? To hear Ingrid tell it, you broke into their coven and hauled Thomas off, ne’er to be heard from again.”

  Bishop growled. “I didn’t break in, for fuck’s sake. I knocked on the damn door. I’d heard word that his birth nest had an assassin in town and might have infiltrated his home. I was doing him a favor. Unless you forgot, I saved his life. It’s not my fault your screening process was shit. Probably still is.” He said that last bit under his breath, but being what she was, Ingrid still heard him.

  Her pale-gold eyes went scarlet in an instant.

  “Oh, wait,” Bishop said sarcastically, “aren’t you in charge of that?”

  Ingrid practically vibrated with rage, and it was all I could do to step between them before she snapped him like a twig. I was half-tempted to yank Bishop by the ear and make him sit in the corner.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. No need for name-calling. Past beefs can be tabled for the foreseeable future until we figure out why the ABI building got attacked. No one wants the ABI in the middle of day-to-day affairs less than me, so why don’t we try to figure this out?”

  Ingrid glared around me at the likely equally pissed-off death mage. I could practically feel the rage wafting off of both of them.

  “Fine, but not here,” Ingrid growled, her elfin face slowly dialing back from blind fury. “Buckle up, Death Boy. We’re going to the nest.”

  9

  The Dubois nest was like something out of a ’90s goth movie. If “vampire” had an aesthetic, it was this place. Housed in one of the few gothic-style churches in Knoxville, the nest was filled with black-wearing, pale-faced people scurrying around like the light actually hurt them.

  It didn’t.

  It was a myth that sunlight burned vampires to a crisp. A tale that had been perpetuated by the vamps themselves because it kept their secret. Not that in this day and age keeping the secret was really the top priority. With as many movies and TV shows that featured vamps, they could pretty much walk among the masses undetected. According to a few of my sources, the Spanish Inquisition had been a rough time, but nowadays?

  It was freaking paradise.

  The same went for crosses, holy water, and all forms of religious paraphernalia. The only real thing that hurt a vamp was a beheading or a stake to the heart. But truth be told? Nearly everything died if you made their heart stop beating.

  Well, except for ghouls, but that was another story altogether.

  The Dubois nest home was small compared to others in the States, but it was one of the few that didn’t require all members to live in-house. The New England and Pacific Northwest nests were run by less-than-innovative monarchs with little to no interest in progressing with the times. The old ways required everyone to live together, and the drama that entailed was exhausting—or so I’d heard.

  The Knoxville vampire queen was not a fan of drama, bullshit, or games. Not even a little.

  Ingrid led Bishop and I through the giant cathedral, the lectern set up like the throne it most definitely was. Sitting at the top was a dark-haired woman that could pass for twenty if she was a day. Icy-pale skin contrasted beautifully with her carefully coiffed hair and deep-red lipstick.

  She wore a jeweled crown on her head and a dress that probably cost more than I made in ten years. There were tiny rubies sewn into the fabric of her coal-black dress, making it shimmer like fresh blood, which was the probable intent. But it was her eyes that told of her real age. Typically, vampires had what I called a “human” look and a “phased” look. If they weren’t feeding, pissed off, or in the middle of “happy time,” most vampires could pass for human if you didn’t know what to look for. But phased vampires were a whole other animal. Phased, they had a secondary set of needles for fangs and solid red eyes that told of blood and death and a whole host of not good things.

  If Ingrid was old, Magdalena Dubois was ancient.

  “Detective Darby Adler and an ABI fuck-stick, my queen,” Ingrid announced while bowing slightly once we’d reached the end of the aisle.

  I gave the queen a short head bow, but Bishop went big with a knee bend thing that had to be out of the old-school playbook. Magdalena seemed amused at Bishop’s antics but didn’t tell him to rise. Instead, she smiled and ignored the kneeling agent as if he were of no consequence.

  “Darby, darling. How are you?” she asked like we were old pals, and I’d been scarce. Truth be told, to her, nine months may as well have been a blink of the eye even if it had felt like decades to me.

  “I’m good, Mags. How’s tricks?”

  Bishop took that opportunity to sputter, breaking free of his kneel to shoot to his feet. “Mags? Mags? Do you have a death wish, Adler? Who in their right mind calls the Knoxville vampire queen fucking Mags? Are you actually trying to die?”

  I snorted and walked up to the dais to give Mags a hug. If Ingrid owed me, Magdalena owed me twice. Not only had I saved her ass, but I’d also kept her whole nest out of hot water and prevented a ghoul war to boot. I swear, the ABI could learn a thing or two from someone like me.

  Mags’ touch was like ice, the blood running through her undead flesh roughly the temperature of a sub-zero freezer. Young vamps were cold to the touch if they hadn’t fed recently. Magdalena’s was cold twenty-four-seven.

  She gave me a quick squeeze and invited me to sit at her right, the chair usually reserved for honored guests.

  The pair of us ignored Bishop’s sputtering as he stood with his mouth agape, goggling at us like he’d never seen either of us before in his whole life.

  “They could be better, honestly. I’m sure you’ve heard about the attack?”

  I nodded. “I was in the building when it happened, but I didn’t see anything. Bishop pulled me out of there before anything really went down.”

  Mags spared Bishop a glance before turning back to me. “My sources say it was a group of un-nested, but with what
happened in January, I’m not so sure.”

  “I just heard about that,” I replied, nodding my head to Ingrid, who sat perched at her queen’s feet on the marble steps. “Was the culprit ever caught, or do they have any leads?”

  Mags gave me an indelicate shrug, which didn’t fit her regal appearance one bit. “Not that anyone has said,” she muttered, casting a sidelong glance at Bishop. “But we’ve heard whispers in the community. Some of the ghouls who were there don’t even remember being in Tennessee on the night in question. They had no idea how they arrived at our borders or why they were here. Not that anyone has dug too deep into those claims.”

  She quit the sidelong glances and outright stared at Bishop. Bishop, to his credit, was staring right back.

  “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation. You know that.”

  Ingrid scoffed, her eyes flashing red for a moment before she calmed herself down. “What investigation? Your team, your agency has done exactly fuck all. Investigation my ass.”

  Bishop’s face practically solidified as he met the tiny vampire’s stare. “We are doing something. Just because you’re too blind to see it doesn’t mean we’re sitting on our asses.”

  Ingrid rose from her perch on the steps, facing off against Bishop. “Yeah, right. All the ABI does is police people stupid enough to get caught. You know damn well that a smart enough criminal could get away with mass murder under your noses without breaking a sweat.”

  I thought of Tabitha and the sheer number of murders under her belt. Ingrid wasn’t wrong.

  “The ABI is full of corrupt thugs and shady back-alley deals,” she continued, her voice getting louder and louder. “You know I’m right. You know, La Roux. Don’t pretend.”

  Bishop’s eyes flashed gold for a second before he closed them with a wince. Defeated, he turned and walked to the closest pew and took a load off. I was surprised he hadn’t stormed all the way out. I couldn’t say that Bishop was an ABI company man, but I was under the impression he liked what he did for a living.

  I wasn’t a fan of the ABI by any stretch of the imagination, but I kind of thought they were a little better than what Ingrid implied. With Bishop’s refusal to defend them, it was almost as if he agreed with my tiny vampire friend.

  That was not a good sign. Especially if my mother was at the helm.

  “Maybe I can help?” I asked, peeling my gaze off Bishop and back to the vampire queen. Sticking my nose into things was sort of a hobby of mine. If shit was going down, I wanted to know what I was dealing with before the next attack decided to spring up in a place without an escape hatch.

  Mags gave me a calculating smile. One I wasn’t sure that I liked very much. “If there were anyone I’d trust outside of my nest to look into this, it would be you.”

  I realized way too late that Magdalena had maneuvered me into this, which wasn't exactly unsurprising when it came to the vampire queen. The last time I’d saved her bacon, she’d semi-conned me into looking into a fringe sect of the were-cats that were terrorizing parts of the city. Luckily, I’d found them quickly, realizing all too soon that it was a wild group of teenagers who hadn’t even grown into their paws yet. They were just fortunate that none of them had killed anyone, or else there would have been nothing I could have done to keep the ABI out of their shit.

  Magdalena was the unofficial ruler of these parts. Sure, Knoxville had were-packs all over, a few witch covens, a boatload of mage covens, and more than a few ghoul nests. But everyone looked at the vampires as the trendsetters and rule-makers. No one wanted the ABI to stick their nose in arcane shit, but the vamps?

  That was a whole other ballgame.

  “How many boons can one person rack up in this nest, Mags?” I asked, leveling the queen with an expression that told her I wasn’t the same fresh-faced newb I’d been a year ago.

  I knew where I came from now—even if I didn’t like it.

  Mags gave me a sly smile, one meant to cajole rather than irritate. “As many as are needed. The ABI might not like you helping people like us, but your services here do not go unnoticed. Your sense of law and order is more like a sliding scale rather than a rigid iron fist. You weigh each offender based on merit and possible threat, rather than an ancient rulebook designed to keep the arcane out of power, out of touch, and under their thumb.”

  There was nothing for me to do but agree with her. The ABI hurt more than they helped more often than not. I’d never been a fan, and that was before I found out my mother was the reigning bitch in charge.

  “I’m not stupid,” Mags continued. “I know where you’ve been for the past nine months. Every single arcaner from here to the moon has heard what you did. Everyone knows that you likely saved us from the end of us all. Shiloh St. James has been telling anyone who would listen about how you kept her and the whole Knoxville coven alive. We know, Darby.”

  The praise felt uncomfortable, and I gave Mags a shrug. “Anyone would have done the same if they could have.”

  Magdalena sat forward on her throne and leveled me with an expression so fierce it took everything in me not to cower in my seat. “I know you’re working for the ABI now. Truth be told, you helping us from this side goes a long way to show the people of this city that you still care about us. That they haven’t changed you while you’ve been gone.”

  There was the faint thread of a threat in that statement, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Bishop, in all his removed glory, stood from his pew.

  “You have the gall to say that shit to her?” he growled, approaching the dais with a rage I’d never seen on him. “She spent nine months in prison. Nine. Being poked and prodded and tested. Biopsies and bone marrow tests, and who the fuck knows what else? All because she made a deal to keep me alive. All so the coven wouldn’t be held accountable for their breach in the accord. All so her father could stay breathing.” The line of his jaw might as well have been made out of granite, and if he ground his teeth any harder, he’d crack every single one of his molars.

  But I couldn’t look at Bishop anymore. Someone had to have told him what happened because it sure as shit would have never been me. I vaguely remembered Sarina talking about Bishop losing his shit. He’d been different since I saw him last, and it didn’t seem like it was just the attack.

  She told him. Dammit, Sarina.

  “You think she wouldn’t have endured that shit if she didn’t care about this city? You think she would have just let them do those fucking tests day in and day out for almost a fucking year unless she had a damn good reason? All due respect, but fuck you very much.”

  Bishop marched up the dais steps as he shouldered the bag full of files and snagged my hand, pulling me from my seat. “Give me shit. Who I signed on with and the deal I made, I deserve it. She doesn’t, and you won’t talk to her like she owes you something. Especially when it’s plain as day who owes who.”

  With that, he turned his back on the vampire queen, her enforcer, and the rest of the nest, who seemed to be poking their heads out of their hidey-holes. I didn’t want to be on the wrong side of Magdalena, but the more Bishop’s words ran through my head, the more I realized the truth in them.

  Those words felt like a balm and a barb all at the same time, and I had to outright ignore the burn in my eyes that heralded tears.

  Shit. I could not cry in a vampire’s nest. Even with as much of an in as I had here, showing weakness was not a good idea.

  I heard a faint displacement of air that signaled a vampire moving at top speed. Then Ingrid was standing in our way, the tiny enforcer barring the exit.

  Greeeaaaat. That’s all I needed today, to die the day I got out of prison.

  Really, it was just my luck.

  10

  Bishop tucked me behind him, which was cute as hell, truth be told. Big, bad death mage was protecting the little lady like I couldn’t hold my own. Well, we were in the middle of a vamp nest. There wasn’t too much either of us could do if they decided it was dinnertime.<
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  Ingrid stepped closer, her face giving nothing away as she approached. Then, she smiled.

  “I guess you aren’t so bad after all. Even if you are an ABI douche,” she razzed Bishop, and it was all I could do not to laugh.

  Ingrid’s gaze landed on me, and I saw a faint trace of pity in her eyes. Of course Ingrid pitied me. She hadn’t been on a losing side since Rome fell. “My queen would like to work with you on this problem, but she understands if you are overtasked. She appreciates any help you may give us.”

  Her formal speech was likely from Magdalena herself and was as close as I was ever going to get to an apology. I hadn’t known a vamp to ever say sorry, and I knew I would be dreaming if I heard it from a queen.

  “I’ll do what I can, but I make no promises, okay?”

  I wanted to help. I hated that the ABI building had been attacked. Hated that there were no answers and too many questions. But I had to keep the people I loved alive and out of hot water, and unfortunately, that fell to me.

  The enforcer’s eyes flashed red for a second before she gave me a nod and moved out of Bishop’s way. He didn’t waste any time and yanked me behind him as he hauled ass to the door.

  “Oh, Darby?” Ingrid called once Bishop and I were nearly free.

  I tugged Bishop to a stop and glanced over my shoulder. Ingrid knew something. There was no way she would stop us if her queen had given us leave. If Ingrid had info, I wanted to know about it.

  “You might want to start in your own backyard. Just a hunch, but there is a damn good reason why arcaners try to stay out of Haunted Peak.”

  I frowned at her for a moment before facing the door once again.

  What the hell did that mean?

  As soon as we reached the cathedral stairs, I felt a familiar and unwelcome pull at my middle. It was as if someone had taken a hook and yanked me through a keyhole backward. Flashes of the city whizzed by my face as Bishop snatched us through the shadows. All too quickly, the world slowed down, but not before I nearly vomited on the pavement. I didn’t, but it was close.