Deal With the Devil Read online

  Jude was standing there, wearing jeans and a black leather jacket that emphasized the width of his shoulders. But it wasn’t his wardrobe I was concerned with. His fangs were out and his mouth was covered in blood. His eyes pulsed red rage in the darkness.

  Hanging limply from his hand was what was left of No Fat Chicks. His head seemed to be at a very strange angle to his body and at first I couldn’t understand what my eyes were seeing. Then everything came together and I saw that it was barely attached and only hanging on by a thin strip of bloody flesh. His body was still shaking spasmodically like a chicken that has just been to the butcher’s block but the blood that had spattered my other attacker—and probably me too although I was too numb to feel it—was flowing more weakly now, trickling over Jude’s hand to patter on the dirty concrete like red raindrops.

  “Holy shit!” Needs a Bath had finally found his voice. “Look, man, I swear, I didn’t touch her.”

  “I know. That’s why you’re still alive.” Jude’s deep voice was ice cold and if he was feeling anything at all about what he’d done, you certainly couldn’t see it in his face. Well, except for the glowing red eyes. For the first time I wondered if that was normal for vampires. I had never heard that their eyes changed colors according to their emotions but what did I know?

  “Please…please don’t do me like you done Bill,” Needs a Bath whimpered. “Please, I swear to God—I won’t never come near her again. We didn’t know when they paid us to take her that she belonged to somebody like you.”

  I wanted to ask who had hired them but I was too frightened to open my mouth.

  Jude looked at the other attacker. “Leave. Tell the ones who hired you that Luz Velez is mine. Anyone who threatens her risks the same fate as this one.” He shook the body and the No Fat Chicks ball cap, which had somehow managed to stay on even though the owner’s head had come off, finally flopped to the floor in the growing puddle of blood.

  Needs a Bath scrambled to his feet and my nose told me he had a new reason to pay better attention to his personal hygiene. Sure enough, when he stumbled past me I saw a dark patch on his already stained pants. The sharp reek of urine competed with the heavy tang of blood in the air, making my stomach roll. I leaned to one side, retching. I never eat before a test so there was nothing to come up but my body was determined to try anyway and I was helpless to stop it.

  “Luz. Wait a moment.” There was a blur where Jude had been and he disappeared for probably five seconds while I did my best to cough up a lung. Then he was back, sans body, and kneeling in front of me.

  As my nausea finally subsided, he pulled the silver net off me and threw it to one side. Then he unwound the silver chain from around my legs, wincing as he did so like a man touching a hot skillet. When I was free, he held out a hand to help me up.

  It was covered in blood.

  I’d been numb when I first saw Jude standing there with a bloody body in his hands but now the panic came back full force. I felt my lungs tightening up, my airway constricting as I struggled to get a deep breath. I was dizzy and sweating bullets, my palms clammy and my heart racing so fast it felt as if it were trying to pound its way out of my chest with a sledgehammer.

  “No-no, don’t touch me!” I scrambled to my feet, yanking up my jeans, which were still somewhere down around my thighs. All I could think was that Diego had been right—Jude was a monster, capable of anything. Don’t get me wrong, weres aren’t exactly the most peaceful types and sometimes pack justice can be enough to turn your hair white. But I had never seen anything so brutal, so final as the dead body dangling from Jude’s hand.

  “Luz, please.” His eyes had stopped glowing. They were back to their normal pale green and they were filled with concern.

  “You…I…” I couldn’t get the words out. “You killed him.”

  “He was hurting you.” He said the words simply, as though they explained everything.

  “Can’t breathe.” I sank down beside the back bumper of the Hummer. My head was spinning and black spots were dancing before my eyes.

  “Luz…”

  But I didn’t hear whatever else it was he said because at that point I fainted.

  I had a strange dream while I was out. Someone was telling me I had to invite them in. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to see my crappy apartment but they seemed very insistent about it and kept asking. Finally I slurred, “Come in,” and blacked out again.

  When I woke up the second time I was lying on my own bed, covered by the fuzzy pink and blue afghan my grandmother had knitted for me when I was eight. I still felt dizzy and shaky but the panic had passed and I took a deep breath, gratefully filling my lungs with air.

  What happened? I sat up slowly, noting that my cheek hurt as though I’d burned myself with a curling iron. I started to get out of bed and go look at myself in the mirror when I saw that the bathroom door was closed and there were puffs of steam coming out from under it. Someone was in my apartment taking a shower in my bathroom.

  Jude. When I thought his name, it all came rushing back. The attack, the intended rape and the very final way the vampire had resolved the situation. The panic wanted to come back too but I took a deep breath and held it off grimly. I can’t always do that—not in the heat of the moment. But this time I did. Closing my eyes, I counted backward from a hundred, thinking of absolutely nothing but the numbers until I stopped feeling so shaky. Over now. It’s over now, I told myself. Breathe. Just breathe.

  Just as the panicky feeling was passing, the bathroom door opened and Jude stepped out. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of faded jeans that had a few dark red spots around the knees, now drying to brown. His blond hair was slicked back from his forehead and there were water droplets clinging to his broad shoulders and muscular chest. He looked like a fantasy straight out of Playgirl and in any other circumstances my mouth would have been watering. But now my eyes kept returning to those drying reddish-brown spots on his jeans.

  “I hope you don’t mind. My shirt and jacket will have to be cleaned before they’re wearable again.” He lifted the low armchair I had in the corner of my bedroom and placed it beside the bed before sitting down. “Are you all right?”

  “I…don’t know.” I looked at him uncertainly. “I don’t…exactly know how to feel about you now.”

  “The same way you felt before, I hope.” He was sitting relaxed in the chair, one long leg crossed over the other at the ankle as though we were talking about the weather.

  “But…” I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts in order. “But you killed him.”

  “And I would do it again.” His tone was absolutely calm. “I am sorry you had to see it, though,” he added. “Maybe I should have taken him elsewhere first. But when I saw him touching you…” His eyes glinted red for a split second and then he shook his head and they went back to normal. “Anyway, I am sorry if it upset you.”

  “But not sorry you did it,” I said flatly.

  He shrugged, his broad, bare shoulders moving gracefully. “Why should I be?”

  “My brother warned me about you,” I said, pulling the afghan up to my chin. “He said you were ruthless. That even other vampires are afraid of you.”

  He arched one blond eyebrow. “Luz, all vampires are ruthless. The reason my own kind avoid me is something else entirely.”

  “Why then?” I asked, not even sure I wanted to know.

  He shrugged again. “It’s not important. I have…a disability. Something like your own condition.”

  He didn’t seem inclined to say any more about it and I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have wanted to explain ad nauseam to someone who didn’t know about my inability to shift with the moon, either.

  I thought of something else. “Diego—my brother—he said you skinned someone—a were—alive. That’s not true, is it?” I really, really didn’t want it to be true.

  Jude’s face was suddenly closed. “I always have a reason for everything I do.�€