Invincible (A Centennial City Novel) Page 2

  I wished I could see his face, but the hoodie was pulled far too low for me to make out anything but a willfully set chin. “I get to lead you to the residence of that vamp. Noir.” He spat on the ground, as if the very name stung his tongue. “I create a diversion. Attempt to murder Noir. Then you’ll come and…rescue the vampire. Chang made it very clear, that old-ass son of a bitch.”

  Never had I heard Elder Chang referred to in such a manner. “You seem quite certain.”

  He took a step forward. “I prepared to give everything up. They got my girlfriend. I was going to ask her to marry me. The night before I’m supposed to ask, she went missing. I got a note from her a week after.”

  “At least she was still alive,” I said, although in retrospect, perhaps it was not the best thing to say.

  He kicked a garbage can over and refuse fluttered in the wind, along with the scent of old decay that made my stomach wobble. “No! She’s not. She’s fucking dead. I can never see her again. Do you know what that’s like? To fall in love with someone and find out you’ll never be able to see them? Never be able to touch them again. Never be able to see their smile. It’s like hell. No. Hell would be better.”

  If he took another step, matters were going to come to a rapid end. As much as I felt sorry for the poor bastard, I had a job to do and I would not let a stupid, angsty young man stand in my way. “I am sorry. There’s not much more I can say. But you and I….we have a job to do. Were the Elders to know of your dereliction, you would be put to the blade.”

  He laughed, a harsh caustic sound. “No shit, Sherlock. But guess what? It’s just you and me here. And I don’t think you’re going to tell them…are you?”

  “It’s no concern of mine, whether you do your job or not,” I replied. “However, because your task is intertwined with mine, you are keeping me from fulfilling my duties. And that is something I will not stand for.”

  “So what?” he taunted. “Are you going to kill me?”

  I never killed a person without a contract. “You are the sacrifice. If you don’t die, I can’t get close to Noir. If I can’t get close to Noir, I cannot do my job. Give me one good reason why I should walk away from you.”

  I couldn’t think of a reason why I would.

  Silence reigned for a moment and inexplicably, he flicked his switchblade shut.

  “I don’t want to die.”

  On second thought, that was a pretty good reason.

  But I had my orders.

  “No one does. Not really.”

  “We can do this another time,” he said quietly, so quiet I barely heard him over the howl of the cold, biting wind. “I don’t want to die. Not now. Not until I get the bastard who turned Shannon.”

  Ah. He was one of those individuals. “Retribution?”

  He opened his arms out wide and I thought I saw the glimmer of a smile amidst the shadows of his hood. “After that, I’ll be more than willing to die for the Elders. I wouldn’t have another wish in the world. Help me find the motherfucker who took Shannon. Help me find him and I’ll help you get into Noir’s good graces. How’s that sound?”

  A tantalizing proposition. “What if I refuse?”

  He pulled out the switchblade again, although this time the blade remained hidden. “Then we duke it out, right here, right now. I’ve heard about you, and I’m not an idiot. Only one person’s going to be walking out of here, and it won’t be me.”

  Was I supposed to be flattered? “You’ve put me in a difficult situation.”

  “That’s better than being dead,” he said. “I won’t rest until I find out who turned Shannon. That’s all I want to do.”

  “Elder Chang would not be pleased.”

  “Fuck him.”

  I regarded the young man, clothed in shadows, the woefully small switchblade making my lips twitch up. “What’s your name?”

  He paused, almost as though he was afraid of telling the truth.

  “Jase,” he said. “Jason, but you can call me Jase.”

  “I’m--”

  He stopped me. “I know who you are. Pang.”

  I winced. “Hwang.”

  “Pang, Whang, whatever. Same difference, right?”

  “As long as you don’t mind me calling you Face.”

  “Ah.” He stowed the blade away. “Point taken.”

  But I couldn’t have him calling me by my last name. Not if he was going to mispronounce it every time. “Ran is easier.”

  “Guess so.” He took a step back and I let out a breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding. “So? You’ll help me?”

  I relaxed my grip on the leather strap across one shoulder. The bag was the only way I could walk around with my sword. Regardless of what you see in movies, normal people can’t walk around with weapons in plain sight. The police tend to look down on that sort of behavior, especially in such a corrupted hellhole like Centennial.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I? I can either kill you here, and find some other way to get into Noir’s fortress, or I can help you with your revenge scheme, wasting a bit of time, and then get into Noir’s home the way I was supposed to.”

  “Don’t think of it like that.” A gust of wind blew down the alleyway, ruffling our clothes, pushing the hood off his head. “You’re just helping a friend. That’s all.”

  A security light chose to turn on at that moment, bathing him in pale, sickly light and for a moment, it gave him a golden halo glimmering around his dark, shaggy head.

  Eyes as dark as obsidian watched me carefully as he pulled the hood back over the features that should’ve belonged on a celestial being.

  Pity.

  I opened my mouth. “It is a shame to see such beauty go to waste.”

  “Beauty? Me?” He let out a hoarse laugh. “You need to get your eyes checked.”

  I shrugged. I was never one to belabor a point. “What happens now?”

  “Depends. How soon do you want to finish the job Chang gave you?”

  As if that even warranted any sort of answer. “What should I do?”

  He looked over his shoulder warily. “What say we take this conversation somewhere else? You never know when someone might be listening in.”

  “I can’t feel anything.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

  It seemed almost too simple. Help the beautiful one avenge the “death” of his beloved, and in return, he would willingly submit his life for the furthering of the Fellowship’s agenda. Too simple. It felt wrong. “Before we leave here, there is something we must do.”

  “Yeah?”

  He made as if to walk past me and I put a hand on his wrist. Even through the thickness of his sweatshirt, his nerves jumprf at my touch. “A pact.”

  I hadn’t noticed his height, having already categorized him into the compartment labeled “dead” in my mind, but this close, it struck me just how close we were. He was a touch under six feet and we stood almost eye to eye.

  What a novel feeling.

  He nodded. “Guess I should’ve expected. You don’t trust me.”

  You don’t trust me.

  What an understatement. “Don’t take it too hard. I don’t trust anyone.”

  “I don’t either.” He made a point of looking down at my hand still on his wrist. “Do you mind letting me go? I’m not going to run away.”

  “ I only have your word on that,” I said. “At this point, I’m afraid it doesn’t count for much.”

  He wrenched away. I let him. “Fine. Whatever. Pact me away. Just don’t touch me. Ever. Got it?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It was not my place.”

  He tilted his head in a considering manner. “You sound all proper and shit. That’s fucking weird.”

  “I was raised to speak like this,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so defensive. “Meanwhile, you sound like you were born in a gutter.”

  His teeth glinted in the darkness as he grinned widely. “In the projects. And damn proud
of it.”

  To each his own. “Give me your hand.”

  He extended it, palms up. “This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

  “Pain is irrelevant,” I replied. “It’s more symbolic than anything else.”

  “What is?”

  I flicked my wrist and a small dagger fell into my palm, the point almost so sharp to be invisible. Quickly, I scratched a line across his palm before he could resist and did the same to mine.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  I clenched and unclenched my hand, urging the blood faster. “Blood of mine, blood of yours, and now we are bound by an oath.”

  I rubbed my palm against his, even as he tried to squirm away. For a man, he wasn’t exactly fearless.

  Clearly, beauty wasn’t everything. I didn’t know why I felt even the slightest bit of disappointment.

  “Are you crazy?” he shouted. “Haven’t you fucking heard of AIDS?”

  “I can’t imagine it would be much of a problem, seeing as how you’re going to dead soon,” I replied and let him have his hand back.

  “You think I give a rat’s ass about me? I was talking about you, you fucking idiot.” he muttered and I watched the blood drip down his fingers to pool on the ground. “I swear to God, all you fucking killers are crazy. You’re all nuts, you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” I said quietly, nodding at his hand. “You’re bleeding.”

  He continued muttered under his breath as he tucked his hand into his pockets. “Wasn’t the first, won’t be the last. Are you done? Stupid weird voodoo shit, if you ask me. I could’ve written you an affidavit and could’ve saved us a scar. Like an oath is going to keep me from lying.”

  “It wasn’t just the words,” I said, as I tucked the dagger back into the wrist sheath. “Your blood runs in mine, now, just as my blood runs in yours. If we are separated, I’ll be able to track you. If you decide to run away…well, you won’t be able to.”

  He was silent for a moment and then pulled out his hand, staring at the wound already starting to clot. “That’s pretty freaky. Will I be able to do that, too?”

  “No.”

  “Sounds like I’ve got the rough end of the deal,” he said, sighing. “So you’ll be keeping an eye on me, then? Sounds kind of invasive.”

  I followed him out of the alleyway. “Don’t be ridiculous. At least you’re still alive.”

  “Yeah, but for how long?”

  I stayed quiet and he laughed mirthlessly.

  “Dude, this sucks.”

  He didn’t know half of it.

  3

  His “hide-out” as he so succinctly put it, turned out to be a seedy little bar with sticky floors and bartenders who looked like they’d rather bash your face in than give you a drink.

  One of the bartenders stood at least seven feet tall with scars crisscrossing his broad, tanned face and he polished glasses with a rag that hadn’t looked like it’d been washed in centuries. He nodded at Jase, by now looking rather ridiculous with the hood still over his head. “You bring a date here? Classy, jackass, real classy.”

  “She’s not my date.”

  I followed him to the counter where he took a seat. For someone who wanted secrecy and privacy, sitting in the middle of a loud establishment didn’t seem quite right. “Are you sure this is the best place?”

  “Are you kidding me?” He sounded incredulous. “This is the best place to talk. Martinez, scotch. On the rocks, if you can spare the ice. Glenfiddich.”

  The bartender never stopped polishing the glass. At the rate he was going, there’d be a hole in it soon. “Can you pay? I seem to recall a couple unpaid tabs. Truth be told, the only reason you’re here is because Mimi’s soft on you. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t even get three feet past the door.”

  I held up my hand and took a seat on a rickety barstool that felt as though it would spill me onto the sticky, sawdusted floors without so much as a by-your-leave. “I can settle his tab.”

  Seemed like the least I could do.

  Martinez’s eyebrow went all the way up to his greasy hairline. “Good god, man. Looks like you’ve caught yourself a live one, this time. What’d the hell you do?”

  “Like I said, she’s not my damn date.” Jase smacked a hand down on the counter, the one I scored with my dagger. It should’ve hurt. The lack of expression on his face only made me curious. “And I don’t need you to pay off my tab. I can pay for myself.”

  I placed a bill on the counter. Money held little meaning for me. “This should cover our drinks, and some, if not all, of his tab.”

  Martinez whisked the hundred dollar bill out from under my hand with a low whistle of appreciation. “Yeah, this should about cover it. Your lover boy over there isn’t too picky his drinks. He’d drink gasoline if he thought it’d get him drunk.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Martinez! Shut the fuck up, man!”

  I bet Jase was probably crimson red under his hoodie. I would be.

  “Scotch on the rocks for you, Jason,” he said and turned strangely-hued amber eyes in my direction. Was this man one of the Other? His aura seemed fine, no demon taint, but those eyes…”What would you be having, ma’am?”

  “Screwdriver,” I replied. “Virgin.”

  “Right you are,” he replied with a hint of laughter in his low, baritone voice. “One exceptionally expensive glass of juice coming right up.”

  “A virgin screwdriver?” Jason sneered. “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s orange juice.” I pulled the sword, safely enclosed in a black nylon training bag, off my shoulders and leaned it against the bar next to me. Easier to get to if shit ever decided to hit the fan. “I don’t drink alcohol.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  Martinez slid over a glass of the amber colored liquid I had the grave misfortune of drinking. Once. “She’s Asian, dipshit. A lot of Asians don’t have a tolerance for it. If you had half a brain, you’d know dumb shit like that.”

  I felt silly for being impressed. “I expect since you’re a bartender you see a lot of people like me here?”

  He grinned and two golden canines caught the dim, dirty lights. “Most of the time, one drink and they’re done. Two and I’ve got to peel them off the floor.”

  I shouldn’t have asked. “What about three?”

  His grin widened. “Got to call a funeral home.”

  That sounded about right. Of course, there were always anomalies, but most Asians I knew couldn’t hold their liquor even if you gave them a bucket.

  Jase stared down at his glass. “No alcohol. That’s got to suck.”

  The bartender poured me a tall glass of orange juice straight from the box. Minute Maid, no pulp. Just the way I liked it. “Only to assholes like you. Now shut up and drink before you make more of a fool out of yourself.”

  “Fuck you, Martinez.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he replied and made his way down the counter where a couple of frat boys, judging from their letterman jackets, tried to hail him down.

  I stared at the glass of orange juice, all the while aware of the brooding young man slumped next to me. “You’ve got a good friend there.”

  He snorted. “Yeah. Whatever. He’s not bad.”

  A couple of minutes passed, all of it incredibly noisy as the bar began to fill and slowly, I saw the wisdom in Jase’s suggestion. “People will think nothing of seeing us together. Most won’t care to listen to us, will they?”

  “Nope.” He swirled the drink in his glass, having only taken one sip since receiving it. “Besides. We’re in this together. I want to know who you are before we start digging.”

  “You know who I am.”

  He lifted his head, and I watched his eyes follow a tall, slim girl with light brown hair as she walked to her pack of friends near the bathrooms. Interesting. If he was a vampire, I would’ve suspected his hunger, but as he was not, I had no idea. Perhaps he was into brunettes. None of my business. “Wrong. I kn
ow of you. But who you are? I don’t think anyone in the Fellowship knows who you are.”

  I took a sip of the wonderfully astringent and sweet juice and set it down carefully on the cardboard coaster. “What is there to know? I hunt for the Elders.”

  “For how long?”

  That required some thought. “Five years, give or take a couple of months.”

  He huffed out a breath. “From all the rumors, I would’ve thought a lot longer. But you don’t look older than me. How old are you?”

  “None of your business.” I wasn’t against telling him, but this man was due to die soon. I had no intention of becoming close to someone who would soon die by my hand. I’m heartless, but I’m not evil. “Tell me about Shannon. That’s her name?”

  He nodded. My ploy at changing the subject worked. Either that or he didn’t really care how about my age. “Yeah. Shannon Donahue. God, I miss her.”

  “How long ago was it?”

  It was starting to get difficult hearing him, as the noise level rose. Most likely due to the pack of frat boys and Brunette girl with her girlfriends playing a game seemed to involve a ping-pong ball and several plastic containers of beer all in various states of fullness. Fascinating and yet pathetically infantile.

  I moved closer to him, close enough to brush my body along his.

  He flinched. Hm.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said solemnly. “It was not my intention. It’s getting loud in here. I didn’t want to shout at you.”

  The set of his shoulders seemed to relax. Barely. “Okay. Fine. But keep your distance.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I didn’t trust jittery people. “How long ago did she…disappear?”

  “Almost four years ago.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t thought he was that old. Unless he was the type to get engaged in high school. And yes, he did seem like the impetuous type to do just that. “That’s a long time. And you’ve made no progress so far?”

  He shook his head and tossed down half the whiskey. “Couldn’t. That’s the whole reason I joined the Fellowship. Was told they would help me find the son of a bitch.”