Page 16 of The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom (Sam Quinn #7)

Eleven

Robin Hood & Little John

“I’m perfectly safe and have excellent balance. Viktoria, this is my husband Clive. Clive, Viktoria of the Buda Pack.”

Clive nodded. “It’s good to meet you. The other members of your pack aren’t pleased to have us in your territory. Do you feel the same?”

Viktoria stared at him a moment, braced for attack, and then slowly relaxed her stance.

“About bloodsuckers? Yes. You?” She glanced at me again.

“Probably. László is Alpha, though. We protect the people of Budapest, and vampires are a plague.” She stared at him as though challenging him to disagree.

“We can be,” he said. “It is our eternal shame.”

She kept her eye on him, wary. I may have told her all sorts of lovely things about him, but vampires caused her lover’s death and that wasn’t something one made peace with easily.

He nudged me toward him, off the wall, glancing at the bag in my hand. “Good. You found a butcher. I’m afraid we need to get back now.” He looked at Viktoria. “It was good to meet you.”

“Can you give me your number?” I asked. “When I know anything for certain, I’ll contact you.”

She thought about it a moment and then took out her phone. Once we’d exchanged numbers, Clive gave me his back again. I climbed on and he gave Viktoria a shallow bow. “Good evening.”

He moved so fast, I couldn’t track it, though I knew he’d leapt over the wall and raced into the night.

Show-off.

Not at all. I didn’t want her to follow us and by our leaping from a fifty-foot wall, she couldn’t. If any pack members were watching, they’d know it was impossible for her to follow us.

I kept my head down and my eyes closed. The speed and movement made me seasick. Is it any wonder I love you?

Only to the rest of the world. Hang on tight. We’re going over the fence again.

A moment later, he was sliding across the marble entry floor like he was wearing socks on a freshly polished floor.

A Renfield closed the door. “The gathering will begin in twenty-three minutes.”

Clive helped me down and then took my hand. “Noted. But as we’re not clocking in for work, I don’t believe we need to be quite so precise with our arrival.”

We made a point of walking leisurely back to our room, me swinging my bag of meat sticks. It was a message to the minion that we didn’t take orders from him.

I like the shorts. Your legs are warm from the sun.

I feel uncomfortable when I think about it, or when that Renfield looked at my legs, but for most of the day, I forgot about them.

Progress. Hopefully, you didn’t burn.

I looked down as I walked. I don’t think so. I need to tell you about a teenaged girl they found in a park, bled dry with bite marks in her neck…

As I got changed, Clive sat on the couch and listened, his expression darkening. You’re sure?

Nodding, I told him, I recognized the Renfield’s scent as well as a layering of vampires. I didn’t know the vamps, but I haven’t met everyone yet.

Sam, this makes no sense. This is the Guild. They make the rules everyone has to follow. How can it be Guild members flouting secrecy and killing humans in their own backyard?

Maybe it’s one of those do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do type deals. I went to the couch and sat beside him. There’s something rotten here. I felt it before we even entered this place. Maybe it’s only a few people and the rest of the Guild isn’t aware.

Clive shook his head. It would be impossible to hide something like that.

We’d all smell the humans and the blood, the sex, if the wolves are correct about the assault.

He stared at me as though willing me to be mistaken and then his shoulders slumped.

I want it too much. Nodding slowly, he said, Perhaps all didn’t participate, but they knew and did nothing.

All right. We know now. Let’s figure out who and stop it.

Leaning forward, I gave him a kiss. We’ll do just that. Standing, I went back to the closet and began speaking aloud again. “Audrey said pants were okay to wear.” I held up a pair of charcoal slacks.

“You can wear whatever you want. Leave the shorts on, if you’d like. I’ve told you. You aren’t a vampire and therefore needn’t follow our rules.”

I stepped into the trousers. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”

“Hush. After all the lovely things you said about me to the wolf, I’d be one of those monsters to criticize your ensemble.” He put his feet up in the coffee table, his attention focused on partially clad me.

“You eavesdropped? Rude.” I pulled on a soft cashmere sweater in sea glass green. It reminded me of the mermaid’s story and my hope that she and the fisherman had found their happy ending.

“Unintentionally. I’m attuned to your heartbeat and was listening to find you.”

I put on a tumbled sea glass necklace, earrings, and bracelet set.

“Pretty. I haven’t seen those before,” Clive said.

“I found them in the window of a little shop right after I’d purchased the sweater. Audrey said she thought they were perfect.” I was starting to feel a little less weird about spending money. Were they gems? No. But they were lovely and made me happy.

I stepped into charcoal gray suede heels that matched the trousers and turned back to Clive. “Okay?”

He stood, gathering me up in his arms, and kissed me. Eventually, he leaned back, his thumb brushing over my cheek. “Perfect. You got some sun on your face too. Sunkissed, that’s what you are.”

Grinning, I said, “I’m pretty sure I’m vampire-kissed.” I picked up my phone and stuffed it in my bag. “Ready when you are.”

By the time we got to the meeting room, it was quite crowded. I heard Clive swear under his breath but couldn’t see what had upset him. The voices in the room were louder than last time. If vamps drank alcohol, I’d wonder if some of them were drunk.

The lights flickered as a Renfield came by and offered Clive a goblet of blood. “Master thought you’d prefer this to our other offerings this evening. If not, please feed at your leisure.”

Clive glared at the Renfield, taking the goblet from his tray. “I don’t care for tonight’s fare.” He tipped the cup to his lips and swallowed it down before returning it to the tray, all while blocking me from the room.

“We have our answer. Let me deal with this, love,” he said. “I promise I’ll put an end to it.” Clive’s expression was so strange, part fury, part concern.

“Deal with what? What’s wrong?” I asked, looking over his shoulder.

Clive’s eyes went vamp black as the color drained from his face and he clutched his stomach.

What is it? I grabbed his arm, trying to lead him away from all the others.

Poison. The blood was poisoned.

I went lightheaded. What do we do?

Try not to die, I suppose. Jaw clenched, his fangs poked out from between his lips.

That’s not funny! Will my blood help? It might help dilute the bad blood. Bite me.

He lurched to the side, but I caught him and kept him upright. Do it. Drink my blood. I wrapped my arms around him and felt a slight prick in my neck.

Looking over his shoulder, I flinched. The women from the asylum, threadbare gowns stained in ways I didn’t want to think about, stared at me with blank gazes, mouths agape.

One woman, who was missing patches of snarled hair, tugged mindlessly at a greasy hank and pointed at the other side of the room.

Another scratched at her arm with torn nails, ripping at her skin.

Blood dripped on the floor at her feet. The screaming woman I’d seen the day before opened her mouth, teeth gray and rotting, but made no sound.

Instead, she lifted her arm, pointing as well.

Chills ran down my spine. The lights flashed and the asylum patients were gone. What was in their place, though, was far worse. This had been what had caused Clive to swear as we walked in.

Standing like zombies in the room were humans, women and a few men, stripped naked to the waist, with vampires groping them while they fed. This was what they’d done to Viktoria’s lover Mira, to that poor teenaged girl whose body they’d dumped in the park.

A vampire leered at me while he bit a woman, running his hands down her body. I wasn’t sure I could control the howl in my head. I was holding Clive. I couldn’t hurt him, but my claws poked at my fingertips.

I knew they were vampires. I knew they survived on blood, but bagged blood had been the practice for decades.

If these vampires wanted to feed from live donors, there were rules.

Clive had explained it all to me long ago.

They couldn’t take too much and leave the human too weak to carry on.

They had to be quick and discreet, mesmerizing the human so they remembered nothing.

And they weren’t to do anything that could expose the existence of vampires.

These bastards had stolen humans from town as party favors.

When the leering vamp squeezed the woman’s breast while staring at me, I lost it. I needed to shift and kill everyone in the room. I hadn’t been able to eviscerate those two attendants who’d raped Léna. I couldn’t go back and kill my own rapist again, but I could fuck up these assholes real good.

I found their blips in my head and a second later, the leering vamp’s dust settled on the floor. Another, who was taking off a teen’s pants, turned to dust a moment later. Death was too easy for some.

Vampires edged away from the unwilling blood donors, shooting looks at one another, trying to determine who had the power to kill like that.

Cadmael! I shouted in my head. He’d been leaning against a far wall, gazing at the grotesque display, but he turned when I called him. Clive’s been poisoned. Was I sure Cadmael wasn’t the one who had done the poisoning? No, but I needed help. Clive trusted him, so I put aside my own misgivings.

I knew my eyes had lightened to wolf gold. Feeling woozy when Cadmael arrived at my side, I moved Clive’s head, so he stopped feeding and I said, “Take care of him for a minute.”

I stalked across the room and pulled up the shirt hanging from the first woman’s waist and guided her toward the door.

I left her beside Cadmael and went for the next.

When a vamp stepped in front of me, I walked around him.

“No. You will not do this,” I snarled, pulling women away from black-eyed vamps with their fangs bloodstained.

I think they were so preoccupied by who had just handed two of them their final deaths, they ignored me murmuring to the women and helping them dress.

The lights flickered again and I looked up at the chandelier. “Quit it!”

I pulled a man away from a vamp who had had about enough of my shit. He leaned in to attack me, but I slammed him in the stomach with all my strength, making him double over and vomit up the blood he’d ingested.

“I knew I should have brought my sword,” I muttered, collecting the humans they’d stolen, helping them put their clothes to rights. Thankfully, vampires were pretty much all out for themselves, so no one jumped me to retaliate for the humiliated vamp who had just let a wolf get the better of him.

“You steal people, feed from them, sexually assault them, and then dump them in alleys as though their lives are meaningless. You might as well shout from the rooftops that vampires are among them!”

A Renfield reached out to grab me, but I broke his arm while throwing him across the room. The crack of bone was loud in the suddenly silent room. Vamps sidestepped the minion, letting him slam into the wall.

My brain felt like it was on fire but I tried to rein it in, not wanting to hurt the already traumatized humans.

“So arrogant and careless. The townspeople will realize what’s up here in this old asylum.

Expect a modern-day mob with pitchforks, otherwise known as drone strikes.

Do you honestly think they’ll hesitate to level this hellhole on top of you? ”

“They are vermin before us,” shouted the asshole whose dinner I had taken away from him. “We are greater, more powerful than puny humans. Or bitch dogs who have no place in this Guild.”

He got lots of agreeing grunts on that one.

“So powerful,” I sneered, helping a man put his t-shirt back on. There were ten humans and I’d been pulling them all toward the door. “And while you’re napping during the day, they can break in and stake you.”

I heard a click at my ear. For the second time this week, someone had pulled a gun on me. I was too angry to think about consequences. If I hadn’t been weakened by feeding Clive, I probably would have crushed as many blips in the room as I could before they took me down.

I was fast, though, especially when I was pissed off.

I didn’t think. I just reacted, snatching the gun away and slamming it into the Renfield’s head.

Judging by the looks of shock on the vamps, they hadn’t thought me a real threat, more like tonight’s entertainment.

The expressions of more than a few became pensive as they seemed to assess my threat.

“Sam.” Clive was pleading with me to stop. Weakened as he was, he couldn’t protect me from all of them and he knew they were about to silence me for good.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. I’m getting these people out of here.”

I heard a thump behind me. “And if she requires any help,” a man in heavily accented English said, “I’d be more than happy to lend a hand.”

I turned to find the dark-haired vampire with the large mustache.

“We’ll be like Robin Hood and Little John,” he said with a smirk, “stealing from the undead and giving to the living.”