Page 33 of Kissed the Mark
I WOKE TO AN UNFAMILIAR buzzing noise in apitch-black room. There was a luxuriously soft blanket over me andan expensive mattress under me, and I had no idea where I was.After a minute, my eyes adjusted, and the buzzing stopped. Leandrawas on her side next to me, her hair splayed out over the pillow,shoulders bare. I, myself, was ass naked next to her, and my hairwas still damp from the shower Leandra had dragged me into. True toher word, she had ordered me Indian food and let me sleep in herbed. Among other things.
I sat up on my elbows and watched her. Sheslept completely still. There was part of me that wanted to believethe best of her, especially now that she’d crumbled my defensesenough to get me into bed…a part of me that wanted to believe shejust had a strong fear of mortality that had led her to vampirismin the first place and was further leading her to an unattainablegoal, harmless to indulge due to it being literally impossible. Butif thatwastrue, it should’ve been easier to tell her thatwhat Francesca had done was make a golem that passed convincinglyenough as Leandra right out of the 1920s, and not actually pulledoff a miracle of time travel.
So, clearly, I didn’t trust her. What wouldshe do if I did share the truth? Lash out at me? Be verydisappointed? Go back to Chicago to try to convince a differentwitch to do it?
There was another part of me, one I’d pusheddown deeper, that still felt like the whole thing was sinister. Itwas one that I had buried far enough to forget about while we hadsex—that she was being power hungry, greedy, like I always thoughtvampires were. That she probably just wanted to knock the vampirequeen off her pedestal and take over herself. My head swum with thepossibilities, with the truths and the lies I held onto myself, andthe ones she did.
Maybe it’s better, at least, not to get onher bad side?
The buzzing noise started up again. I got upto investigate. I still had never seen Leandra touch a phone,though she had to have one in this day and age. I found the phoneon the floor, heart pounding at the thought of snooping withoutpermission. But my tired brain forgot I had a new phone now. Thescreen that lit up was the default background I had seen justyesterday, and it was lit with an unfamiliar number. I hesitatedjust a moment too long and the call ended.
There were only two missed calls from thesame number. No voicemails or anything. Scammer? I had changed mynumber a few times over the last few years to try to avoid them,but they always got me. Just when I was about to delete the callhistory, the phone lit up again with the same number. This time Iswiped to answer.
“Hello?”
“Olympia Carter?”
Male voice with a slight accent I couldn’tplace. It was familiar, but not familiar enough to be immediatelyidentifiable. “Who is this?” I asked.
“I need you to meet me at The Scale &Ale in fifteen minutes,” the voice said. It wasn’t said urgently,but assertively, like the possibility of a “no, thank you” was wayout of the question.
“Why would I do that?” I asked, looking tothe bed. Leandra was still dead asleep.
“You don’t have a choice,” he said. And thenhung up.
I considered waking up Leandra—but the sunwas risen already, and she wouldn’t be able to leave with me asbackup. That disgusting, stalkery human Mac would be there,watching my every move, so if my body went missing he woulddefinitely gossip about it and at least someone would know,whatever minor consolation that served as.
I dressed, tucking my silver dagger into mythigh sheath. And then I set out to meet a mysterious and verydemanding creature of supernatural origin.
?
The Scale & Ale smelled warm, like theyeast from the fermentation process of the beer. There was dimlighting and a heavy faded curtain over the single window. It wassurprisingly packed for a morning—most people would be asleep bynow in this town, so this had to be all daytime creatures orlate-night fiends who got a seventh-grade thrill out of staying uppast their bedtime. A werewolf drooled into the crook of her arm inone corner, empty glasses surrounding her like a shrine.
My eyes went immediately to the odd ballout: Mateo Rivera, watching the door with his eyes that were just alittle too close together. He nodded at me when I sat across fromhim. I should’ve known anyone that demanding on the phone would bea vampire. “Didn’t I warn you against coming here?” I asked. “Whatare you doing out, anyway? The sun is up. You gonna stay here untilsunset?”
Instead of responding to my reasonablequestions, Matt took a deep whiff of the air like a dog on a trail.“You have her smell all over you,” he said.
I looked around to see if he had anyone withhim. In the corner, Mac was sweeping up broken glass, his beadylittle human eyes drinking in every detail. “I don’t know whatyou’re talking about,” I lied.
“I think you do,” he said. “Leandra is thething I’d like to talk to you about today.”
I swallowed. A waitress came by with greenskin and little demon horns sticking out of her head. “Is thereanything I can get you, hon?”
The Scale & Ale was known for itsin-house distilled beer. You could not get a Coors or Miller inthis place—the three beers were called “Howl at the Moon,” a veryobvious Blue Moon rip-off with citrus notes, “Witchy Willow,” alight name for a stout that tasted a lot like the trees of itsnamesake, and “Perilous Pear,” an experimental pear cider that wasnotorious for giving people bad bouts of diarrhea.
“I’ll have a Blue—a Howl at the Moon,” Isaid, and she went to get one.
Mateo’s glass was dark black, indicatinghe’d been adventurous enough to try the stout. Two blood tabletsswirled at the bottom of the glass, still not completely dissolved.“I’m going to tell you something that you can’t repeat anywhere,”he said, swishing the dark liquid. “I need your word that it willnot go past these walls.”
“I can give you my word,” I said, “but itdoesn’t mean we won’t be overheard here.” I gestured to Mac in thecorner, who was being very obvious about monitoring us. He even hadhis little notebook out. “The reason I knew you were here last timeis because of that skeevy janitor there. He told me you were herewith a werewolfandhe knew very basically what youdiscussed.”
The vampire steepled his fingers. “I likethis place on occasion because I would never in a million years runinto one of my kind here,” he said. “No vampire worth their saltwould take the word of a human seriously.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I am sure I won’t have to. In any case,that was part of what I wanted to tell you about. Thewerewolf.”
A cold chill spread down my spine. “Thewerewolf and Leandra are correlated,” I said, more of a statementthan a question, because I’d suspected as much. Would I have totell him Francesca’s secret, too? I suddenly wished I hadn’t come.Usually, I was the kind of person who deliberately didn’t dosomething that was demanded of me out of spite. Things had justbeen so off lately.
