Page 20 of Fanged Secrets
My mind was still a muddled mess of emotions and I nodded slowly, in a daze. Dylan tilted my chin up to catch my eye and my poor knees threatened to buckle at that simple act. She held my gaze for a moment, unuttered words dancing on her lips before she glanced down at my attire and raised an accusatory brow.
“Is that my jacket?”
Chapter 11
Dylan
The night was thick with fog as River and I navigated a labyrinth of cargo crates and shipping containers. From what I had managed to glean from my last recon mission, Don Leone was expecting a shipment of some kind at Red Hook dock, and Jordan was curious to know exactly what the crime lord was up to.
Slipping past security was easy enough, despite River’s complete lack of stealthing skills. While the prophetic vampire was nimble and limber, she had a hard time being inconspicuous – and it probably had something to do with the blood-red bodysuit she insisted on wearing for the mission. After the attack that nearly cost me my leg, Jordan was hesitant to have me infiltrating Don’s turf alone. And so I’d been partnered up with River for every mission since, despite my vehement protests.
As if she could hear me rehashing the earlier argument, River caught my eye from where she crouched behind a shippingcontainer and smirked, before slinking past the wandering torchlight of a passing security guard.
Most likely spotting a streak of crimson in his peripheral, the guy swung his torch around and shone it near the spot where River had just been, and I groaned inwardly. To get him off River’s tail, I rifled for a loose piece of gravel and chucked it in the other direction.
Itplonkedagainst another crate and the man’s torchlight swept toward the sound. After a moment of stillness, he started after it and I exhaled slowly, not moving a muscle until he was out of sight.
“Will you please –” I hissed when I caught up with River, “– try to be a little more careful. That guy nearly spotted you.”
“Yeah, but I knew you’d have my back,” River replied nonchalantly, tapping her temple and grinning at me. “One of the many perks of prescience. Don’t forget, I can predict these things.”
“Can you predict the exact instance when my foot meets your ass?”
River only rolled her eyes, before peeking around the cargo and peering at the empty port. “There’s no one here. Are you sure the drop is happening tonight?”
Right on cue, a figure appeared from one of the large, fancy yachts floating on the dark water. Even from a distance, Don Leone was recognizable, lazily making his way down the jetty.
River and I watched from the shadows as Don turned his attention to the water – and the small tugboat slowly making its way toward him. It drifted against the jetty and I spotted another figure letting down a ramp for Don to board.
Zeroing in on the stranger, I took note of her features. Stark white hair, incandescent in the moonlight, and strangely gray skin. Her eyes, when I caught a glimpse of them, were an inkyblack – no whites and no irises, just an abyssal darkness that absorbed the light.
“We need to get on that boat.” River bolted forward before I could stop her, cutting a serpentine path toward the water and disappearing behind another crate.
I swore under my breath and followed, drawing shadows around my body and keeping an eye out for any more wandering security guards. An unsettling feeling filled my gut when I rounded a corner and picked up on the faintest of scents. It was a cloying, sweet aroma, almost like perfume but it left a bad aftertaste.
I wrinkled my nose and pressed on, with a strange sensation brewing in the pit of my stomach. It was a clawing hunger like I hadn’t been sated in days, even though that was far from the truth.
Finally, I caught sight of River, poised beside a stack of cargo crates, her eyes glassy and unfocused. I paused, hissing at her to get her attention.
“River? What are you doing, we need to move.”
She didn’t respond, and the unease curdled in my stomach. I moved closer and saw River twitch, her eyes tracking the movement. But I wasn’t the focus here, I realized with a sick sense of dread, catching the faint torchlight of an approaching security guard. When River’s eyes slitted, her neck craned in the direction of the approaching human, I realized what was happening. She was hunting.
I sprang into action when the security guard rounded the corner, hoping to ram River hard enough to snap her out of her bloodlust. But River was disarmingly fast, and she dodged me, haunching over as her full vampiric transformation began. Her bones bent and contorted with sickening cracks that bounced and echoed around the metal containers, sharp nails lengthening to a razor's edge.
“No, no not here!” I seethed into her ear, gripping her elongating jaw and trying to catch her hazy eyes, which were steadily gravitating away from each other as her skull took on new shape. “River, snap out of it!”
I hurriedly assessed my options. I had dealt with plenty of rogue vampires before, it was the reason I kept two blades slotted neatly against each forearm. I could dispatch River quickly enough, hopefully without killing her, so long as I caught her mid-transformation.
“Goddammit!” I hissed to no one in particular, yanking both blades out of their sheathes and preparing to drive them into River’s chest. As long as I avoided the heart, she’d be okay. Maybe.
“What the –” I heard a strangled gasp behind me and River and I were suddenly bathed in light as the security guard spotted us. I glanced over my shoulder at the quivering man, who nearly dropped his torch when he got a good look at River’s face.
“Jesus Christ, what the fuck is that?!”
“Get out of here!” – was what I wanted to say, but River’s body quivered violently, the scent of fresh blood reaching her newly slitted nostrils, and she bolted.
River went for the man with full force, slamming her morphed body into his and pinning him to the ground. Those razor-sharp teeth flashed as she tried to bite down on the guy's neck, eyes flashing with crazed hunger. Her pupils, when I glimpsed them, were blown wide, like a human on opioids, and she slathered at the mouth like a rabid dog.
