Page 35 of Curses and Casualties
Before I can relay Kane’s words, Amara steps forward. “The Úlfhéðnar have been waiting centuries for a cause worth bleeding for. You gave them that. Don’t dishonor their choice by drowning in guilt.”
Georgia takes a shaky breath and nods, but I can still feel the weight of it through our bond. I squeeze her hand, a silent promise that we’ll make their sacrifice worth something.
“We need to find this vampire club before more enforcers track us down,” I say, forcing myself to focus. “The Úlfhéðnar bought us time, but not much.”
“Sangre Noir,” Amara says, checking the moonlight filtering between buildings. “It’s about six blocks from here, in the heart of the supernatural district. We have maybe three hours before dawn.”
“There really is an entire supernatural district?” Georgia asks, wincing as she adjusts her weight to favor her good leg.
“Every major city has one,” Darius explains, attempting to smooth his torn jacket. “Places where others like you can exist without constantly maintaining glamors. Neutral ground, theoretically. Though with vampires...” He trails off meaningfully.
“With vampires, everything has teeth,” Scarlett finishes. “Got it. No pun intended.”
I pull Bjorn’s wooden token from my pocket. The wood is almost black with age, and the carved runes seem to shift in the dim light. When I run my thumb over them, I feel a pulse of old magic that makes Kane stir uneasily.
Blood and ash,he mutters.Death-memory in the wood.
“He said to mention a blood debt from Prague,” I say aloud.
“That’s oddly specific,” Amara muses, eyeing the token with new interest. “Prague, 1868, was when the last great vampire war ended. If Bjorn was involved in that...”
“He didn’t look a day over twenty,” Ethan points out.
“Appearances with the Úlfhéðnar are deceiving,” Darius says. “They age differently when they spend most of their time in wolf form.”
We move through streets that transform with each block. The graffiti shifts from gang tags to symbols that hurt to look at directly. Shop windows display impossible things—bottles filled with captured moonlight, mirrors that reflect different faces than those looking into them, books whose pages turn themselves.
“Holy shit,” Georgia breathes, stopping at a window where a taxidermied raven suddenly blinks and caws. “How is any of this possible?”
“Same way you have an ancient wolf spirit sharing your body,” I remind her gently. “Magic doesn’t follow the rules you learned in geology class.”
She shoots me a look that’s part exasperation, part wonder. “You’d think after everything I’d stop being surprised, but...” She gestures at a food truck where the vendor appears to be serving something that glows. “My brain is having a meltdown.”
A businessman in an expensive suit walks past, talking loudly on his phone about market projections. He doesn’t evenglance at the shop selling what are clearly human skulls labeled ‘Ethically Sourced.’
“The glamor is strong here,” Darius explains. “Humans see what they expect to see. A quirky neighborhood with some alternative shops, maybe a bit rougher than they’d like, but nothing that challenges their worldview.”
“But you see the truth?” Georgia asks.
“Darius wears my witch’s mark,” Amara puts in. “It grants him vision… and protection.” She touches a gently glowing finger over the back of Darius’s hand where an intertwined symbol of sun and moon pulses faintly. Their bond isn’t soul deep—nothing is, compared to mine and Georgia’s—but it’s a comfort to see them so attuned, even in the midst of this mess.
We continue, keeping to the pools of shadow, dodging streetlights and the occasional squad car. There’s a tense energy in the air, even though this part of the city is home to monsters, we’re more than aware we’re the ones being hunted.
At last, the street opens into a wide boulevard lined with clubs. Neon signs shimmer and blur. At the far end, Sangre Noir squats like a predator waiting to strike. The building is all sharp angles and black glass that seems to absorb light rather than reflect it. The neon sign pulses red like an arterial spray, and even from here I can smell what waits inside—blood, fear, and something else that makes my wolf bare his teeth.
Be wary of blood drinkers,Kane warns.Some of them keep wolves as pets.
A line of patrons snakes around the building. Most are human, dressed to impress and completely unaware that the pale, beautiful people interspersed among them aren’t using makeup to achieve that ethereal look.
“Jesus,” Scarlett mutters. “It’s like a buffet line. And they have no idea they’re on the menu.”
Two bouncers flank the entrance. The human one looks bored, checking IDs with mechanical efficiency. The other...
“Troll,” Ethan murmurs. “Half-blood by the look of him.”
The troll’s eyes track our approach, nostrils flaring. When we bypass the line, several humans complain loudly. The troll silences them with a look that probably appears as a stern glare to them but makes every supernatural in line step back.
“Private party?” he rumbles, his voice like gravel in a cement mixer.
