Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - Midnight Predator

Turquoise nodded, then turned her back to Sarta and Ravyn, and stalked as gracefully as she could from the fighting floor.

She paused next to the cork assignment board, collecting herself before she left the halls.

Ravyn had come up behind her to look at the board. Turquoise’s instincts told her to leave. Ravyn, like all Bruja members, was not someone Turquoise trusted at her back. So of course she forced herself to stay and read the notices.

Turquoise ignored most of the posts. She was a mercenary, but she had standards, and she preferred vampires as her prey. There were numbers up on a couple of shape-shifters, but none sounded interesting. Besides, Turquoise was still a little wary of putting a knife in something that breathed and bled like a human, even if it did grow fur, scales, or feathers occasionally.

The rest of the posts she tried to avoid reading. She liked to think no amount of money was worth stalking human targets, but she knew most Bruja members disagreed. Some argued that cowardice kept her from hunting her own kind. When Turquoise had first joined Bruja, the older members had taken bets on how long it would take her to make her first human kill.

They were still waiting.

Turquoise finally slipped away from the hall, stretching as she shouldered open the door to the bright outside.

A stranger, a young woman no more than twenty-five years old, was waiting for her. She held up her hands to show she was unarmed. “Turquoise Draka?” she inquired. Her voice was polished, the accent vaguely English.

Turquoise nodded cautiously. Her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight now, and she sized up this woman. She looked fairly harmless, with brown hair pulled back in an elegant twist, and wearing a cream business suit over a chocolate-colored blouse. A leather folio leaned against the wall beside her.

However, the woman’s heels made no sound on the stone walk as she approached, and even in the mid-June heat, her face showed no hint of sweat. Turquoise trusted her ability to recognize a vampire on sight, but just because this woman was not a bloodsucker did not mean she was human.

“Ah, and here is Ravyn Aniketos,” the woman called, as Ravyn slipped tiredly through the door. Though she must still have been sunblind, Ravyn drew a dagger instantly upon hearing her name.

Ravyn and Turquoise exchanged a look, and a mental shrug passed between them. Although they were enemies at times, rivals for power always, they were both intelligent enough to put their differences aside if confronted by a threat. Vampire, witch, shape-shifter, or human, this woman didn’t stand a chance if her intentions were less than friendly.

“Something I can help you with?” Turquoise inquired warily.

“Yes. My name is Jillian Red.” The name had the sound of a pseudonym. Jillian extended her hand, but did not seem surprised when no one reached out to shake it. “I have been following your careers for about a year now. You both hold quite impressive ranks, and have shown a certain rancor toward a breed I am not too fond of myself.”

Bored already, Turquoise assumed the woman’s lengthy speech was just winding toward another job.

Ravyn had actually started to walk away. Turquoise debated doing the same, but was stopped by the woman’s next words.

“You both show a certain promise in your history, namely, some unpleasant experiences with the trade.”

Turquoise did not need to ask which trade. From the sudden tension that pulsed through Ravyn’s body as she turned back, she had understood the words just as well.

“And what do you know of our history?” Ravyn asked, voice silky as a black widow’s thread.

Jillian Red sighed. “You, Ravyn, first came to vampiric attention when you were fifteen, and were brought into the trade by a low-power mercenary named Jared. You were lucky enough to avoid the professional slave traders, but unlucky enough—”

Ravyn shook her head, sending silky cranberry hair shuddering about her shoulders. “This is unnecessary.”

“Unlucky enough,” Jillian continued, “to be in the midst of vampires who respected Jared’s claim of ownership and because of it would not come to your aid no matter how much they disapproved of his treatment of you.”

Ravyn was by this point visibly simmering, her frame so rigid Turquoise suspected bone and sinew would shatter if the hunter tried to move.

“Shortly after he acquired you, Jared was found dead,” Jillian finished, “and about a week after that, you entered Crimson.”

“What is the job?” Ravyn snapped.

“Shall we find some place to sit and discuss the particulars?” Jillian suggested. “Even if you choose not to accept my offer, which I doubt, you will be well-paid for your time.”

“Lead the way,” Turquoise said, when Ravyn did not immediately speak. If this woman knew as much about Turquoise’s history as she did about Ravyn’s, that knowledge could make her inconvenient, if not dangerous. It would not hurt to learn what she wanted.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER,they were gathered around a small table in Jillian Red’s hotel room, looking at pictures the woman drew out of her briefcase.

“This is a copy of a painting made back in 1690,” their host explained as she placed the first print on the table. “I don’t suppose either of you recognizes it?”

The painting focused on an intimidating building, the outside walls of which were painted black with an abstract design in red. The grounds maintained the pattern with burgundy-leafed ground cover that had been carefully planted around black stone. A path of white slate wound sinuously up to the door, which was flanked by lushly growing roses. The blooms, which had been carefully depicted by the artist, were pure black.

The painting looked familiar, but Turquoise could not place it.

Jillian Red launched into a history lesson. “In the early sixteen hundreds two sisters, vampires both, founded an empire they called Midnight. This building was the heart, the symbol so to speak, of their power. They were less than five hundred years old, young compared to most of their kind, but they both were ruthless, and more organized than their elders; their determination allowed them to take control swiftly.”

Jillian glanced at the white stucco ceiling, and continued, “Jeshickah, the younger of the two sisters, was the absolute ruler of Midnight. For a few hundred years, she controlled nearly all the vampires, the shape-shifters, and the witches. As for the humans . . . they were little more than cattle. If a human was sold into Midnight, that was the end.”

“You keep saying Midnight was ,” Turquoise thought aloud, anxious to get to the present and learn what the job was. She was not a fan of history, and she already knew more about the vampiric slave trade than she cared to. “What is it now?”

“I’ll get there,” Jillian chastised. “In the early eighteen hundreds, Midnight was destroyed by a group of older, stronger vampires. The building was leveled, and every living creature caught inside was killed. Of course the vampires survived, but with the property and slaves lost, the empire lost its heart, and the rival power was able to take control.

“The new leaders banned the slave trade—they did not approve of caged meat—but as you two have witnessed, the laws have slackened over time. The original vampires of Midnight were able to pick up the trade again.” Jillian sighed. “That might have been bad enough, but . . .” She reached into her briefcase again, and this time pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten photograph.

“This was sent to me a few days ago.”

The photo did not need to be explained. Someone had rebuilt Midnight.

“The trade has been pulled together by a new master, one of the trainers from the original Midnight. My employer, who wishes to remain anonymous, was unconcerned about Midnight’s revival until recently, when the original founder returned. With the groundwork already in place, Jeshickah is expressing an interest in taking charge again. My employer would like that threat eliminated.