Savannah Russe - [The Darkwing Chronicles 02] - Past Redemption (v1.0)

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PAST REDEMPTION

The Darkwing Chronicles 2

By

Savannah Russe

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

"Savannah Russe artfully blends humor, mystery, intrigue, and fabulous sex

appeal, while letting us know that there is more than one way to tell a good vamp's

story."

—Victoria Laurie, author of A Vision of Murder

Rebound

Fitz didn't let go of my hand, so I gently eased it away but left it close to his. We

were playing a subtle game. I just wanted to be distracted from Darius, to feel

attractive. I was feeling a bit guilty about the fact that I was supposed to be working,

or at least I thought I was supposed to be working. I didn't know what I was

working at, but trying to get picked up by a good-looking guy was probably not

what the boss had in mind.

Just being next to a healthy young male was doing me worlds of good. I could

feel the heat from his body. I tried not to stare at his neck, which was strong and

muscular. I had bitten only one other human—and that was Darius—in nearly two

hundred years, but I couldn't help thinking about it. The urge to bite is nearly

irresistible for a vampire. It's like Tantric sex, only even more intense and

pleasurable—an amazing fusing of souls.

All in all, I was really savoring the moment, starting to get pretty hot and bothered,

when a girl climbed right up on the bar and started dancing. She was clearly stoned

out of her mind. But then the girl stopped dancing and started to choke. She seemed

to be clawing at invisible hands around her neck, trying to breathe or scream. She fell

down hard, her face rapidly turning blue…

SIGNET ECLIPSE

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2,

Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

New Delhi -110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany,

Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Slurdee Avenue,

Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group

(USA) Inc.

First Printing, April 2006

SIGNET ECLIPSE and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

publisher's note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the

product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely

coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or

third-party Web sites or their content.

To all the girlfriends, who have shared the good times and

gotten me through the tough ones—Priscilla Adams,

Rosanna Chiofalo, Susan Collini, Cindy Dente Mauriello,

Faythe Roberts, Ann Schwartz, Carol Terrell.

Introduction

They say, "Lucky at cards, unlucky in love." Well, I must be one helluva poker

player. I accidentally killed the first big love of my life, and when another great guy

finally came along (after two hundred years!), I bit him. It was a love bite, of course,

but for a vampire, a love bite is more than a hickey. Once he got over the shock…

well, you want to talk about a really bad breakup.

What I have left is my career. And that's okay, because I'm not just a vampire. I'm

a spy.

Chapter 1

The Fall

Even before I finished getting dressed, I had a bad feeling about the evening

ahead. The miserable February weather added to my misgivings. The sleet that had

started an hour earlier sounded like roofing nails being thrown against the

windowpane. Wind was howling around the corner of my Upper West Side building

like a wolf racing after its prey. My whole apartment seemed unusually frigid and

empty, hollow within just like me. As a vampire, I chill easily, and now with a cold

and tremulous hand, I pulled on my boots, grabbed the black leather motorcycle

jacket that matched my leather pants, and headed for the door.

I didn't want to go out, but I had been summoned by my boss, whom I know

only as J. If I had my way, I'd still be in my flannel jammies, the ones with cowboys

on them from Jackson Hole Traders, my feet toasty in UGGs, and a mug of herbal

tea in my hand while I sniffed and moped around my living room thinking about my

ex-boyfriend, Darius. Things hadn't worked out as I hoped. He was gone but not

forgotten. To crank up my misery to its max, I'd be playing the golden-oldies CDs

that make me cry, like Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" and anything by

October Project.

But J called and told me it was time I got back to work. Being a spy employed by

an ultrasecret American intelligence agency is sort of like being in the military. The

higher-ups issue orders. I follow them—even when my instincts tell me they're dead

wrong. Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do and die. Tonight I couldn't guess

what arcane plot or secret plan lay behind J's directions not to come to the office,

but instead to head over to an Irish bar in Hell's Kitchen. I'd been to that bar before.

If you like pub fare, they serve some killer potato skins with cheddar, bacon, and

chives. I'd be better off with food that appealed to carnivores like me, something

nearly raw and bloody. It might supply me with a needed infusion of energy and

even optimism. But depression over the breakup and the death of my romantic

dreams had killed my appetite. However, considering the urges of my dark side to

dine on human blood, a lack of hunger is not entirely a bad thing.

A strange uneasiness about tonight hit me from the minute J told me to get

dressed and show up ASAP at the bar that was called Kevin St. James. As I listened

to his instructions, an icy hand clutched my heart. I should trust my instincts.

They've kept me alive for nearly five hundred years. I should have told J I was sick. I

should have stayed home where it was safe. But I didn't. I followed orders.

When I arrived downstairs in the apartment-house lobby, the doorman hailed a

taxi for me, then opened the back door of the cab as I dashed through the sleet and

got in. I pulled the door shut, and with my pale white fingers pushed a damp strand

of hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ear. "Eighth Avenue, between

Forty-sixth and Forty-seventh," I said. "West side of the avenue, a pub, Kevin St.

James."

The driver grunted an okay at me and took off fast, jolting me against the back of

the seat. He had an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. It was supposed

to give the cab a faux leather smell. It smelled more like faux barf. My stomach did a

twist and roll. Just what I needed. Anxiety and excitement had already made me

queasy. Obviously J had another assignment for me and the other vampires of Team

Darkwing, and I wasn't mentally prepared. I had been wallowing in self-pity. All

because of Darius, damn him. Some action might be just what I needed to distract

myself. The city streets were wet and getting slick; the cabbie was going too fast and

the taxi skidded every time he stopped for red lights. Neon yellows and blues

reflected off the icy pavement, and the world seemed to be breaking up into a

kaleidoscope of crazy colors. I felt unsettled and apprehensive. As the taxi raced

through the streets, I sensed the future speeding toward me, and I had the distinct

premonition that something on the magnitude of a freight train was coming, and I

couldn't stop it. I was just going to have to ride it wherever it took me.

I pushed open the pub door into a blast of warm air smelling of beer. Loud music

bounced off the brick walls. I didn't even get two steps into the place when I heard a

voice from south of the Mason-Dixon line shriek, "Daphne! Sugar! Over here!" My

colleague and good friend Benny Polycarp, a native of Branson, Missouri, stood

next to a table and was waving frantically at me. I elbowed my way through the

crowd to her side and was immediately crushed in a hug.

"Oh, it's so good to see you," Benny said as she put her lips right next to my ear

which is about the only way I could have heard her over the din of a Matchbox

Twenty song. She smelled like hairspray and shampoo, and she looked twenty-five,

although she's been undead for over seventy years.

"Good to see you too," I said back at her and looked over her shoulder at the

two guys sitting at the table.

"Hello, Cormac," I said flatly, sounding like Jerry Seinfeld greeting Newman. The

slightly built, pouting young man barely gave me a nod. Cormac always looked

sulky; sometimes I felt he was a great black hole that drained the energy right out of

me with his negativity. Other times he just pissed me off. But we'd known each other

for the better part of two centuries, and I'd often seen him at his worst and only

rarely at his best. Then I gave a genuine smile to the Buddha in a baseball cap sitting

next to Cormac. "And hey to you, Bubba Lee. How are you?" I yelled over the

music.

"Jest fine now, little lady," he yelled back and winked at me. Bubba's face was

ruddy from alcohol, so I guessed he had already downed more than a few beers.

"What can I get you?" Bubba asked as he pulled his bulk out of the seat. Bubba's

not fat anywhere except his belly. He's big and solid, like a redwood tree.

"Guinness," I said.

"You got it," Bubba answered and started making his way to the bar.

I rarely drink, but this was an Irish pub, and they had Guinness on tap. It would

be a sacrilege not to take advantage of that amenity. Besides, who gets drunk on one

Guinness? I figured I could keep my wits sharp and my mind clear.

I peeled off my jacket and dropped into the seat next to Benny. "What's going

on?" I asked. "You get a call?"

"Yeah, J phoned me. I don't know what's going on though. Cormac and Bubba

were already here when I walked in. They don't know anything more than I do.

We've been sitting around, that's about it."

From across the table, Cormac nodded in agreement. "I had a date. You know, it

is Friday night," he whined. "And for what? Nobody knows why we're here. I had

plans. I mean this really sucks." He slumped farther in his chair and returned to

moodily picking the label off a bottle of Killian's Red.

"Do you think J's going to join us?" I said to Benny.

"Uh-uh, I don't think so. I mean we can't discuss anything in this place—even if it

wasn't top secret. We can barely hear each other. He must have something in mind,

but who knows? But the hell with that, girlfriend, how are you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "You know, up and down. Bad days. Good days."

"Have you heard from Darius?" she asked, her big eyes warm with concern.

"No, not a word. I found out he got out of the hospital and nothing else."

"Oh honey, he just needs some time to think. He'll call you when he gets himself

together. I just know it," Benny said, squeezing my arm in sympathy.

"Yeah, sure he will," I said sarcastically. "He hates me, Benny. I bit him, and you

know… now he's… now he's…"

"A vampire," she said. "And immortal. And superhuman. Hate you? He should

thank you girlfriend! He's just an asshole!" Then she shrugged, saying, "All men are

assholes, my friend. And you're too pretty to be shut up in that apartment grieving.

Let's forget about Darius. And let's forget about our uptight boss and whatever he's

planning for us, and have a good time tonight." She surveyed the room, her eyes

sparkling with delight. "Look at this. I love this place! Big bar, fireplace, great music.

It's Friday night in New York, we're single, we're out on the town, and here's Bubba

with your drink."

The big man put a tall dark pint with foam cascading down the side in front of

me. I nodded my thanks, and he gave me a nod and a wink.

"And I brought this here concoction for you, Miss Benny," Bubba said as he

gently set a cocktail on the table before her. "I was gonna get you one of them there

cosmopolitans, but Jennifer, the bartender, told me they was 'strictly passé' and to

try a green fairy or Absolut Apeach. I can't get ahold of the idea of drinking anything

called a fairy, so I chose Apeach on the rocks for the prettiest lady in the room." His

weathered face was creased by laugh lines, and his eyes looked kind as he smiled at

her.

"Well, thank you, sugar," she crooned at him in her deep Southern accent and

made his day.

Kevin St. James can be a quaint Irish pub some nights, with mostly firemen at the

bar and Kevin, the mad tattooed owner, telling stories and everybody laughing a lot.

Other times, like tonight, it's a zoo—packed wall to wall with a mostly young crowd

making noise, drinking a lot, and looking to hook up. Upstairs in the second-floor

lounge an Irish group called Beyond the Pale was slated to play songs from its

newest CD, Queen of Skye, according to a notice chalked on a blackboard. Starting

time of the first set was 10 p.m. Meanwhile pop music was blasting over a sound

system.

I picked up my Guinness and sucked in some of the foam. Cormac sat picking at

his beer-bottle label while he threw a pity party for himself. Benny and Bubba put

their heads close together and were talking a mile a minute: They seemed to be

arguing about recipes for the best cornbread. I caught the part about using a

cast-iron skillet for a baking pan. Nobody in the pub was paying us any attention:

We were four undead, blood-drinking, down-and-dangerous vampires in the big city,

but we looked like everyone else, and actually a lot less strange than many New

Yorkers.

Sitting there and starting to unwind thanks to the Guinness, I decided to just open

up my senses to what was going on around me. I figured I should be watching this

place, observing it. After all, why did J want us here? At first glance I didn't see

anything out of the ordinary. Right in the middle of the room some hotties in little

tiny T-shirts that exposed their belly buttons were acting silly and looking messed

up. I figured they were drunk or high—or both. Nothing unusual about that. Nobody

looked like a suicide bomber planning to blow up city buses or the subways, and

that's what I figured Team Darkwing would be dealing with next. I focused my mind

and took in one person at a time, slowly, carefully. I practice Zen meditation

regularly with an occasional session of Tai Chi; my philosophy is to take wisdom

where you find it. Now I told myself, Be like the motionless cat crouching in the

grass, eyeing an unsuspecting bird.

Crowded up against the bar, I saw a dozen young guys in expensive suits whom I

figured for lawyers or bankers. Negative energy stirred in their vicinity, but I didn't

know why. My wariness heightened.

At two tables right under the fancy crest that says KEVIN SAINT JAMES NYC

sat a party of tourists with fanny packs. Radiating a well-fed Midwestern

wholesomeness, they seemed kind of dazed and thrilled at the same time. My gaze

shifted to a table of four striking men and women who were nursing beers and

projecting an air of desperation. I guessed that they were out-of-work actors. I

moved my attention to the next table where two edgy, thirtysomething women

wearing nearly identical glasses periodically glanced toward the door. I pegged them

for editors, calling it a day after working ridiculously long hours at their jobs in the

publishing industry, which still clusters its offices in midtown Manhattan.

Toward the rear of the bar, as far away from the door and as close to the TV as

possible, sat a couple of regular-looking guys. I thought they might be off-duty

firemen. Chatting with them were two older guys I pegged for plainclothes cops.

One was a short guy with basset-hound eyes who dressed down in an old army

jacket. The other was a muscular black man in a sports coat, whose eyes darted

back and forth and suddenly looked right at me. I shifted my own gaze to a middle

distance above his head. When I looked again, the black cop and his partner had

taken up positions against the brick wall where they leaned back, not drinking,

unsmiling, watching the crowd. Were they narcs? Now there was a tip that something

wasn't entirely kosher in here tonight. I wondered what, and again figured J had his

reasons for sending us here.

Finishing up my observation of the room, I studied the rest of the crowd, small

groups of suburban boys and girls dressed in designer labels. As they drifted

together and then moved apart in a modern mating dance, their laughter came in

staccato bursts, too fast and too loud. Most of them were probably making this pub

their first stop in a long night that would end in Soho. I clearly felt an aura of

discordant energy emanating from them, and it was something besides frustrated

sexuality and raging hormones. What it was, I wasn't sure—except that it wasn't

anything good.

Then the sea of people momentarily parted in the back of the room where a

twelve-foot projection TV screen was showing a soccer game. I was in the midst of

taking a drink of Guinness and started choking when I saw who stood not fifty feet

away from me. There, large as fucking life, was Darius. The blood drained out of my

face, my mind went numb, and I sat still as death.

Benny heard me cough and started to ask "Are you okay… ?" when she saw my

face, turned her head to where I was staring, and yelped as she also spotted Darius

before the people shifted again and he disappeared from view.

Without thinking I was on my feet and rushing into the mob packed around the

bar, trying to get to the back of the long room as fast as I could, trying to get to

Darius. It wasn't rational, but I needed to see him, to get him to talk with me, to

occupy the same space on this planet as he did. Four guys in soccer shirts holding

beers blocked my way. "Excuse me, I need to get through," I said as I wedged

between them. "Excuse me, sorry, I need to get by." Like thick syrup they moved

slowly apart, and I squeezed the rest of the way past them until I could see Darius's

blond hair and the brown leather of his bomber jacket. I ducked past a tall guy's

elbow and found myself a few feet from Darius, nearly close enough to reach out

and touch him.

"Darius," I said loudly enough for him to hear me over the music. My heart was

racing. He looked thinner than he had been when we met; his skin was paper-white

and his cheekbones more angular with the skin stretched tight over the bones. But he

stood tall, commanding, filled with his usual self-assurance. And he was gorgeous,

damned breathtakingly gorgeous.

He turned toward me, and a blaze of emotion flashed between us like a lightning

bolt in a summer storm. Relief washed through me. Then a door slammed shut in his

face, turning his features to stone. His eyes got hard. His mouth became angry.

"Darius…" I began to say and took a step toward him just as an Angelina Jolie

lookalike in a black sequined tube top and tight jeans came up behind him and put

her hand through the crook of his arm. She spun him around, pulling him toward her,

laughing as she leaned close and whispered something in his ear. Then she lifted her

gaze and stared directly at me with a cruel triumphant smile. Her eyes glittered with

hatred.

My reaction to her was visceral; I literally saw red. Adrenaline shot through me,

and my senses clanged like a fire alarm. I stopped in my tracks. What I felt was a

mixture of jealousy, fury, and imminent threat, as if I had encountered an enemy who

wanted me dead. Meanwhile Darius was focusing on this woman as if she were the

only person in the room, and I didn't exist. He turned his back toward me, and I

stood there stunned as they walked away together arm in arm. He never glanced

back.

Pure anguish ripped through my stomach and blasted up into my throat, bringing

with it pain and tears. But the next thing I felt was rage, pure and cold and shiny as

liquid silver flowing through my veins. My body seemed to grow bigger and

stronger. A flame of energy started to travel across the surface of my skin, and I felt

the urge to change into bat form. I wanted to fly at Darius, catch up to him, and tell

him off but good. That son of a bitch. Who does he think he is? It didn't take him

long to find someone else. He told me he had been looking for me all his life. That

I was his destiny. Seven weeks later it's as if I never existed. Son of a bitch! Was he

handing me a line, or what?

Benny's voice came from close by. "Daphy, are you all right?" She must have

been right behind me as I hurried across the room, covering my back. She put her

hand on my arm. I was trembling with emotion, madder than I'd ever been. "Let's

find the ladies' room," she said, steering me toward the bathroom. It was empty, and

she pushed me into the small space and closed the door behind us. It was none too

clean, and we were squeezed in there close enough to be Siamese twins. "Breathe,"

she ordered.

"In here? Are you nuts?" I growled and reached for the doorknob. "Just let me

out. I want to kill the son of a bitch."

"Hold on a minute, sugar. Get a grip. It's been a shock, that's all. And maybe that

was his sister."

I gave her a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look. "Yeah, right," I said.

"Okay, so it wasn't his sister. But you don't know if he's on a date or what the

story is. Whatever—just let it go for now. You're too good for him anyway. Daphy,

let's face it. You're caviar. He's a fish sandwich at Long John Silver's. You're

Bloomingdale's. He's the greeter at Wal-Mart. You're…"

I looked at Benny as if she had two heads before I realized she was babbling

nonsense, trying to get me to cool off. She knew I was on the verge of losing it, and

when a vampire loses it, the results can be dangerous. It sure would blow my cover

if I became a giant bat in front of two hundred people or so. Hiding who we are is

rule number one for all vampires. Exposure is usually followed by the pursuit of a

vampire hunter, a desperate flight and escape, or death at the end of a stake.

"Do you think he's bitten her?" I said, blurting out what was on my mind first and

foremost.

"No! She didn't have a fang print on her," Benny shot back, then folded her arms

and smiled. "And honey, that little tramp sure was showing so much skin I would

have spotted a hickey at a hundred yards."

I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. The whole thing was just so insane. I had

Savannah Russe - [The Darkwing Chronicles 02] - Past Redemption (v1.0)

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