Midnight Curse (Disrupted Magic Book 1) Read online

  Shadow made a whining noise, not liking that, but we both liked it a lot better than leaving her at home. Besides, if she sensed I really was in danger, she would break through the van’s window to get to me. It had happened before.

  Outside, I was relieved to see the sidewalk was deserted. There was a small security box next to the gate, but no one answered when I rang the buzzer. I pushed lightly on the gate, and it swung open easily. Looking closer, I saw that the locking mechanism, a small but solid chunk of metal, had been bent out of shape. There were no scratches or tool marks, which suggested a vampire. Or, I amended, a werewolf. The last time I’d seen Molly, the werewolves hadn’t been very fond of her. Part of me was hoping this was a retribution thing, and I was going to find Molly in there next to a dead werewolf. I hated myself for the thought, but it was looking more and more like the best possible scenario.

  Just in case, I leaned down to the top of my knee-high boot and pulled out a small, balanced knife tipped in silver. Silver makes vampires itch just a little, but it would drop a werewolf pretty much instantly. I put my hands in my jacket pockets so I had the knife in my right and the Taser in my left. Then I made my way up the cobblestones.

  There were two doors on the front of the building. One of them had clearly been retrofitted fairly recently, and was secured with several padlocks. The other door, which looked like the original wood, was closed but not quite latched. I gave it a light push, and the door swung inward.

  There wasn’t actually an ominous creak, but it was definitely implied.

  I peered into the entryway. “Molly?” I called, keeping my voice soft. There was no reaction. I took a breath to try again, louder—and the smell hit my nose.

  Nulls don’t have heightened senses, but even I could recognize the odor of blood and evacuated bowels when it was that overpowering. “Oh, shit,” I muttered. I pulled my hands from my pockets and closed my eyes, beginning to extend my radius. Then I thought better of it. I had a feeling no one in this building was going to appreciate having humanity foisted on them. I fumbled at the wall until my fingers found a switch.

  Light flooded my eyes, forcing me to blink as my eyes adjusted. I was in a small, empty foyer, flanked by open doorways on either side. Straight in front of me was a new-looking wall decorated with framed photos. Before the building was renovated into upper and lower apartments, the wall had probably been the entrance to a staircase. I took a quick glance at the pictures. They showed young women in groups of four or five, striking friendly poses in front of the house, on campus, and in a living room. As far as I could tell, Molly was in every nighttime shot.

  It was so disconcerting that I couldn’t help but stare for a moment. The last time I’d seen her, she’d had a blonde bob and a casual, pricey wardrobe. Now her hair was long, black with bright streaks of blue, and she sported a nose ring and a miniskirt—not quite Goth, but maybe one of Goth’s descendants. Punk-adjacent.

  I automatically stepped closer so I could see the largest photo, an eight-by-ten forming a centerpiece in the display. All of the girls—thirteen total—were in the center of campus, grouped right in front of the Tommy Trojan statue. They were trying to do a cheerleader-style pyramid on the bricks, but it wasn’t going well, and they were laughing. In the center, a pixie brunette with square glasses was holding up a crooked sign reading “the Ladies of 2310.” Molly was at the bottom right, cracking up as the girl on top of her started to fall off. It struck me how happy she looked.

  I stepped back, forcing my eyes away from the smiling young woman. So all thirteen of them lived in this building, in the various bedrooms, like a sort of unofficial sorority. That was kind of shocking. Given the popularity of recording devices in modern society, plus the vampires’ sensitivity to sunlight, it was rare for a vampire to try to “pass” in a human community anymore. They usually lived alone and sought out the company of other vampires when they wanted more than casual contact. How the hell had Molly pulled this off? And why take the risk?

  My eyes caught movement in the doorway on my right, low to the ground. I tensed, expecting maybe a mouse, but it was moving liquid: a slow, thick ooze of blood on the hardwood floor. More than a trickle, not quite a river.

  Molly, what did you do?

  Chapter 3

  I stepped toward that doorway, skirting the channel of red. My hand automatically reached for the light switch on the wall, my eyes still glued to the blood trail. Then the light burst into the room and I followed the blood to its source. My stomach, lungs, and throat all contracted at once. One hand flew to my mouth as though it was magnetized.

  They were everywhere.

  It was a large living room, obviously the social center for the apartments’ residents. Or it had been, before they were all killed. The bodies—all female, probably the other women from the photos—lay crumpled on the sofa, draped across the coffee table, abandoned on the floor. Bloody handprints covered the walls, the hardwood floor, the girls’ clothes, and everything from the lampshades to the magazines that had probably once sat on the coffee table. There must have been an indentation in the floor—thanks, earthquakes—because blood had trickled from each corpse into a large pool at one end of the room. From there, it had made its way into the front hall.

  I’d seen a lot of terrible things since I’d begun this job—there had been a nighttime forest massacre that was particularly memorable—but never so many bodies. For just a second the room seemed to lurch sideways, and I felt nearly dizzy with shock. It just didn’t seem real. Then I saw that one of bodies was stretched on the floor near a window, one arm reaching toward the latch. Trying to run. And she was wearing the same Lucky Brand T-shirt that I had in my closet at home. The irony of the brand name felt like a blow, and I had to force my eyes away from her.

  I registered a small sting in my palm, and I realized I’d automatically reached for the knife in my pocket, slicing a shallow cut in my skin. The pain actually helped me to focus.

  Something was wrong here.

  Vampires don’t kill for sport—if they bleed a victim, it’s for food. But no vampire could drink this many people at once. A whole bunch of vampires? No, that didn’t make sense either. In that scenario, there wouldn’t be any blood left, much less an enormous puddle in the middle of the room.

  I stepped up to the edge of the pool and crouched down, sniffing the air just above it. Above the reek of blood, urine, and fecal matter, I could make out a familiar sickly smell. Stomach acid. Then I got it. There had been just one vampire and she had gorged herself on blood. When her stomach couldn’t hold anymore, she had vomited it back up. Judging by the size of the puddle, she’d done this a few times. Maybe a lot of times.

  Molly.

  It was suddenly all I could do not to puke up the lemonade in my own stomach. I swallowed hard and dug a pair of surgical gloves out of my pocket with my uninjured hand. I snapped them on right over the damn cut, ignoring the sting. Avoiding the blood pool, I moved toward the nearest body, the one draped across the coffee table. I had to push aside the blood-matted mass of blonde hair so I could check for a pulse on her neck. Nothing. But I needed to be certain, so I stepped my way around the room, checking wrists and necks, one by one.

  They were all dead.

  When I was sure there was nothing I could do for them, I moved toward the opposite doorway, intending to check the rest of the house. I felt a vampire hit my radius before I even hit the light switch.

  It was a compact, eat-in kitchen, but I didn’t bother taking in the details. My gaze followed the blood smears to the small figure huddled on the floor behind the kitchen table, out of sight of the doorway I’d come in through. Molly.

  Brightly colored makeup had ridden a wave of tears down her face and into her blouse. It hadn’t done much to wash away the red stains at her mouth, as though she’d tried to use blood as shaving cream. Her pale arms and bare legs were stained with so much blood they looked red with patches of white, rather than the other way around. She was
hugging her arms around her knees, rocking back and forth, mumbling something in a quiet singsong, like a nursery rhyme. Her eyes were fixed on the floor three feet in front of her.

  “Molly?” I whispered again.

  Her head jerked up, her blue eyes wide. “Didn’t do it did it did do it,” she blurted, in the same singsongy tone. I took a step toward her, but she shrank away, making herself even smaller. I held still.

  “Did you kill them?” I said gently. “By yourself?”

  She nodded, her lips still moving, though I could no longer make out any words.

  Panic rose up in my throat like a chunk of ice I couldn’t swallow. I had never seen Molly freak out like this. I’d never seen any vampire freak out like this, and now I had no idea what to do. Hell, it had been years since I’d had one dead body, let alone a dozen—

  Stop it, Scarlett, I scolded myself. I didn’t have time for self-pity. I had to figure out how the hell we were going to cover this up.

  On the rare occasions when I had to get rid of an intact human body, I usually hid it in a refrigerated compartment of my van and then drove to an industrial furnace in the Valley. Dashiell had pressed (and paid) the right people to ensure I could use the facilities freely. But if I went that route, I would have to take these girls in a whole bunch of trips. The risk of getting caught was just too great.

  Unless I could make it look like something else?

  “How did you do it?” I asked Molly. There had been too much blood for me to really examine the wounds.

  She blinked, and her rocking finally ceased. She reached up one reddened finger and pointed at her mouth. I sighed. She’d pressed them to hold still, and killed them one by one with her teeth. Great. If she’d used a blade or a gun, I could have spun it as a human crime, but no one was going to buy bite marks as the cause of mundane human violence. Which was why vampires rarely used their teeth to draw blood these days.

  As I weighed my options, Molly’s rocking picked up again, and I realized that I needed her to snap out of it before I could do anything else. I went over and crouched right in front of her so our eyes were on the same level, like you do with frightened children. “Molly, we need to go,” I said. “We have to get out of here before someone shows up.”

  Her eyes widened in sudden fear. She whispered, “If Dashiell finds out . . .”

  “I know.” Vampires, especially very new vampires, occasionally make a feeding mistake that kills someone. It’s terrible and unfortunate, but there’s really no punishment—the first time. Maybe even a second time, depending on the circumstances. But mass murder was a huge no-no. It drew too much attention to the Old World, and moreover, it just wasn’t in line with vampires’ very nature. They were efficient, careful predators, taking what they needed to live without attracting the attention of the prey. Vampires who blood-gorged were put down. It was one of the unwritten laws that we lived by, and every new vampire knew the drill. At best, Dashiell might be gracious enough to grant her a trial the next night, but it would look pretty open-and-shut.

  Too open-and-shut, actually. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure Molly would be sentenced to death. I needed to think about how the hell I was going to help her, but that was a problem for Future Scarlett. Right now, the important thing was to cover up the evidence and get Molly out of here. That was, after all, my actual job.

  “Molly!” I said, firmly enough to get her attention. “Where’s your car?” She’d driven a late-model Mini Cooper as long as I’d known her.

  “I have a spot in the off-campus garage,” she said numbly. “No, wait. It’s at the dealership for an oil change. Bridget was going to pick it up for me tomorrow.” Her eyes flicked in the direction of the living room. Toward Bridget, I assumed.

  “Okay. We need to go,” I said again. “Right now.”

  She looked down at herself. “Good point,” I said as though she’d delivered an argument. She couldn’t go out on the street like that. “Is there a shower?” I asked. She nodded. “Go. I’ll get started here.”

  She stood up and tottered toward a doorway on the other side of the kitchen, which must have led toward a bedroom. The blood on her had dried too much to leave any drips or marks on the tile where she walked, which was a small mercy. But I was never going to be able to clean up that blood pool in the other room.

  As soon as she was gone, I went around and made sure all the doors and windows were locked and the curtains closed. Then I went into the first bedroom I could find and grabbed clean clothes for Molly from the closet: a belted dress, a wireless bra, underwear. I left them on the floor in front of the bathroom door.

  I did that much just on instinct and experience, but then I paused in the living room doorway, feeling like my brain was bouncing around inside a hamster wheel. How the hell could I make this look like an accident? Or at least a human-on-human massacre?

  My phone buzzed in my pants pocket, making me jump. When I pulled it out, I saw a text from Eli. You on your way? I stared at it, puzzled, until remembering I’d promised to stop by the bar after my “simple” job. Right. It seemed so ludicrous that I had to stifle a laugh. I was afraid if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  After a moment of thought, I texted: All good, I think I’m just gonna head home. Battery is low. Love you.

  I didn’t really think Eli would use the computer in Will’s office to check my location, but it wouldn’t exactly shock me if he did. There was GPS or LoJack or whatever on my van, but it could only be accessed through Dashiell’s security people, and as long as no one raised an alarm there would be no reason for the cardinal vampire to hunt me down. Assuming I could take care of this mess.

  I glanced at the heap of bodies in front of me, feeling guilty. I shouldn’t have called them a mess.

  “I need pot,” I said to myself. “Lots and lots of pot.”

  When I heard the water in the bathroom stop, I went back to find Molly. She had opened the bathroom door, but was now just standing in the middle of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, staring dubiously at what remained of her bloody outfit. When I got close enough to make her human, she began to shiver, water dripping from her black-and-blue hair.

  I picked up the pile of clothes I’d grabbed and held it out to her. She took it obediently, her gaze still fixed on the blood-soaked fabric on the floor.

  “Molly, do you know where we can get some marijuana?”

  She finally lifted her eyes, looking at me in confusion. “What?”

  I repeated my request. She seemed no less bewildered, but at least she answered me. “A few of the girls keep it in their rooms, I think. I’ve smelled it.”

  “Good. I need you to get dressed and get me everything you can find, including bongs, papers, whatever.” I didn’t smoke; my understanding of pot accouterments and slang was limited to what I saw on television. “And some nail polish and nail polish remover, if you’ve got it. As fast as possible.”

  She opened her mouth to ask questions, but then she visibly shook herself, sending sprinkles of water across the tiles, and began to dress in slow, careful movements, like she had to remind herself how it worked. The dress was a little baggy and long for her, but it looked okay when she tightened the belt.

  “Hurry, Molls.”

  She moved past me toward the living room, and there was a burst of air as she got outside my radius and hit vampire speed.

  While she searched, I went back to the entryway for my duffel bag, digging out several dead AA batteries, an almost-new bottle of nail polish remover, and a baseball cap. I tucked my hair up into the cap and went back to the smoke detectors in the kitchen and living room, replacing the batteries with my dead ones.

  A few seconds later, Molly came back with a pile of baggies, bongs, matches, nail polish, and a bottle of nail polish remover. “What are you going to do with them?” she asked.

  “I’m going to make a story.”

  I instructed Molly to dump a few of the polish bottles out on the wood floor a
nd scatter the marijuana and the bongs around the room. When she was finished, I handed her my duffel bag and said, “Get your jacket and anything that could ID you. We’re not coming back here.” She looked like she wanted to protest, but after a moment’s hesitation she nodded. “Then wait for me in the foyer,” I added. “Keep an eye on the door.”

  After Molly had retreated, I splashed acetone on each body, taking the time to make sure I got all of the bite marks. Then I backed out of the room, leaving a little trail of flammable liquid. Molly had already returned to the foyer with a bright pink backpack, and was taking down the last of the photos that showed her face. “I can’t find my phone,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s not where I left it.”

  I frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  We didn’t have time to search the house, not with a room full of dead girls. We were just going to have to hope the phone was destroyed, if it was still here. I crouched where she’d left my duffel and got out a book of matches. I lit three at once and dropped them onto the trail of acetone, watching the flame spread along the floor toward the closest girls.

  I had seen and done a lot in this line of work, but even I didn’t have the stomach to watch the girls burn. I turned my back on the doorway, snapped off my gloves, and stuffed them in my pocket. Then I gripped my duffel bag strap in one hand and Molly’s hand in the other. Cradling the framed photos with one arm, she allowed me to tug her through the door and down the cobblestones.

  Chapter 4

  There were a couple of people out walking dogs, but they were too far away to get a good look at us as we hurried down the sidewalk toward the White Whale. When the van doors closed behind us, I slumped in my seat, nearly sick with relief. Shadow was already at my shoulder, snuffling me for injuries. I gave her a distracted pat, then leaned forward to start the van, holding my breath until we had made it down the street and around the corner. Any second someone was going to notice the smoking building.