Chapter
One
It had been a long time since I’d enjoyed the stars. The stars came with the darkness of night, and with the night came death.
My fingers brushed the rough edges of the wooden stake hidden beneath my jacket as I followed the crumbling sidewalk along a narrow street. Three-story buildings rose up on both sides, the brightly painted stucco cracked and chipped. The cloying scent of roses mixed with the stench of blood and urine, which seemed to waft up from the gutters on the humid night air.
From the wrought-iron balconies above, I could feel them watching us, half concealed by the creeping vines. I shivered. I hated the feeling of being watched, but it was inevitable when your blood didn’t smell entirely human.
As its name implied, the Blood Quarter was vampire territory, but plenty of other supernaturals had made it their home over the centuries — witches, shifters, ogres, and even fae, though none of them mixed with the vampires.
There were mortals here, too — mostly tourists looking for a thrill. The few permanent human residents were either junkies or the marked pets of vampires.
Plenty of vampire playthings were addicts, too, but they lived in relative comfort compared to those who wandered the back allies looking to give the next hungry vampire a meal in exchange for the dizzying high of their venom.
Drunken shrieks of pleasure, or maybe fear, rang from the balcony of the bar we passed, and I tensed as I glimpsed a human with long red hair and flushed pink skin locked in an embrace with one of them. His head was bent into the crook of her neck, and a tang of nervous sweat hit me as the woman’s body went limp against the railing.
I absently scratched at the old scar along my neck. I might have been half human, but I couldn’t understand how the full-blooded ones were so sense-blind — so oblivious to the predators who lurked beneath the pretty masks. It was no wonder they were such easy pickings. The woman had to be a tourist, unaware that these streets were soaked with the blood of people just like her.
As the clamor of the bar died away, I found a gap in the slow night traffic and cut across the street, away from where tonight’s prey would be congregating.
If my fellow hunters had been paying attention, they might have questioned why I was leaving the main drag behind. It was easier to hunt in the heart of the Quarter where drunken laugher and screams covered up the sounds of slaughter. But they had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss tonight, and the two of them were preoccupied with securing their own bounties. They didn’t care if I bagged mine.
In Silas’s house, it was every hunter for himself. Kill or be killed.
Still, that didn’t stop the sour sweat from pooling under my arms as I jogged two streets down to where a row of dark shop windows gleamed. I reached the store front with the shabby burgundy exterior and chipped black-and-white tile leading to the entrance. A gilded sign over the doorway read “Antiques and Curiosities,” and I could just make out the ghostly shape of an old barber’s chair and a silver tea service beyond my reflection in the window.
Golden-hazel eyes peered back at me from a moon-pale face, which was marred by the deep purple circles under my eyes. I’d pulled my dark hair back in a tight French braid. The style only accentuated my haggard appearance, but I wasn’t going for looks. Being pretty didn’t keep you alive. If anything, it made you more of a target in the Quarter.
Casting a hurried glance over my shoulder, I pressed the buzzer to the right of the entryway. It was a long time before Julian came to the door — so long that I nearly abandoned my plan and went back to stake my bounty for the night.
But just as I was about to leave, a pair of ice-blue eyes appeared behind the glass. A long, pale hand folded back the metal security gate and opened the front door.
Julian was a tall, stooped man with graying hair, sunken cheeks, and a mouth that always seemed to be drawn into a scowl. That scowl deepened as he took in my leathers, the daggers strapped to my thighs, and the fact that I’d come empty-handed.
“It isn’t Tuesday,” he said crisply. “My next supply drop isn’t due until then.”
“Glad to see you know what day it is,” I replied sweetly.
Julian’s lips tugged down more. “What do you want,Lyra?” He placed a disdainful emphasis on my name that made my lips draw back over my teeth.
Julian was mortal, and he didn’t bother to hide his contempt for hunters — or any other supernatural species. It was perhaps why he didn’t mind profiting from their suffering. He dealt in everything from vampire blood to mounted sets of faerie wings. I’d seen a pair in his office once, though he usually made it a point to move his contraband quickly.
“It’s not about what I want,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “It’s about whatSilaswants.” My pulse quickened at the lie, but thankfully Julian couldn’t hear the erratic gallop of my heart or smell the tang of nervous sweat the way another hunter could.
He blinked in irritation but stood aside to let me through. The sweet scent of mildew and old things wafted up to greet me, and I strode through the door as if I owned the place.
Inside I was thrashing with terror and desperation, but I was careful not to let it show. As far as Julian knew, I was there at the behest of the most ruthless hunter in the Quarter — and therefore, due that level of respect.
The floorboards creaked loudly as Julian brushed past me, and I followed him to the messy little office at the very back of the shop. My skin prickled as I navigated an aisle crowded with mahogany furniture, dusty display cases, steamer trunks, and animal trophies. Years in the Quarter had honed my instincts enough to be wary of cramped, dark spaces.
The door to Julian’s office only opened halfway, due tothe stacks of papers and boxes overflowing from the corners. I squeezed in behind him, ignoring the sagging wingback chair, as Julian slipped around the desk and sank into its mate.
My unease grew. There were no good exits in this tiny box of a room, and if this got back to Silas —
“What can I do for your master?” Julian asked.
I bristled at the word but quickly masked my disgust by withdrawing a folded piece of paper from my jacket. It was inked in my best imitation of Silas’s handwriting, which I’d practiced for weeks before drafting the order.
