Page 7

Without realizing he was doing it, Grayson had walked over to the door. His eyes scanned the night. He squinted again as he stared towards that alleyway opposite the shop where he had thought he had seen someone lingering. The barrels filled with broken furniture or crates were not lit. No homeless people clustered around them, trying to keep warm and dry.

Grayson slowly reached up to the turn bolt on the door. Turning it would lock the door. He snapped it shut. The sound was awfully loud. It echoed. Grayson backed away from the door, wishing that there was a curtain or set of shades he could pull down to block out people’s view of the inside of the store. With the lights on inside and the darkness outside, they were illuminated as if on stage.

“When the ambulance comes, I’ll open the door again,” Grayson said in a voice that sounded like he didn’t believe what he was saying. He forced himself away from the door and back to the counter where his phone was. “I’m going to call 911 again.”

“You won’t be able to get through,” the man said.

“That’s insane. Of course, I will,” Grayson said.

He punched the numbers in with a slightly shaking hand. He brought the phone to his ear, but there was no sound. No ringing. No electronic sounds. Just silence. He brought the phone down and looked at it. He had bars. He had put in the right numbers. He had pressed the “Call” button. Even if he’d run out of minutes--which he hadn’t--calling 911 was always available. He ended the call and tried again.

And again.

And again.

He couldn’t get through to anyone.

“I told you,” the man said with a large, gulping breath between each word.

“Why? Why is this–”

“The Sect is everywhere. Like dawn, they always come,” the man gasped and spat crimson on the cracked, linoleum floor.

There was another gust of wind that shook the door again. The bell jangled as did Grayson’s nerves.

“It’s the wind,” Sam said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“What else could it be?” Grayson murmured. “The Sect is made up of humans. They’re not magical. If the Sect even exists.”

But wasn’t there one Vampire Bloodline that could control the weather? Horys? Was that their name? Grayson had both read about the Vampires obsessively, but also ignored what he knew at the same time. It was like a guilty pleasure. That Vampires existed should have made him feel less singular, but instead it made him angry. The Vampires had one another. He had found no one like him. And because of that, he had been alone when things had gone wrong.

“They’re coming for me and I can’t get away, but you can.” The man grasped the front of Grayson’s shirt in a surprisingly tight grip. “I see that now. You need to take that golden ticket and go.”

“I’m not you. They won’t let me in,” Grayson responded even as something in his chest expanded and curdled at the same time.

“They’ll take you. I think… something about you,” Gregory’s voice drifted off. “You’re different. I’ve always been able to tell–”

Gregory got nothing else out. The door to the convenience store blew off its hinges. But it didn’t fly straight back into the shelves as it should have. No, it angled.

It came right for them.

Without thought, Grayson put up one hand. The door froze in mid-air. It hung there. Suspended in space. The fragments of metal that had wrenched off the frame also levitated.

“W-what are you doing, Grayson?” Sam’s voice quavered.

Grayson turned his head to look down at where Sam crouched, hands over his head, big eyes flickering between him and the door. Cold washed through Grayson.

“W-what are you, Grayson?” Sam’s voice cracked.

Grayson closed his eyes for half a moment before another voice came from the doorway. It was a female voice that asked in a softly, sibilant voice, “The real question is who is he.”

FUEL FOR THE FIRE

The speaker was a woman who looked to be in her mid-forties. She had silver eyes in a fox-like face with a pointed chin and blunt-cut black hair longer in the front than in the back. She wore a stylish black leather coat, belted around a small waist, black skinny jeans and high-heeled ankle boots. She looked like any number of fashionable, wealthy women that he would have seen walking on the Magnificent Mile with luxe brand bags casually draped over their arms.

But the look in her eyes made it clear to Grayson that she wasn’t one of them at all. He’d met plenty of predators on the streets. He knew one when he saw one. No matter how pretty and petite they pretended to be.

“Who are you?” Grayson hissed, even as he kept the door and the metal pieces floating in the air.