We entered the room in silence. Jo, took the lead while I went second and Evie brought up the rear. Patrik had taken a different route, moving from balcony to balcony to ensure no one escaped that way.

The room, much like the one I had been in with Evie was dark. Heavy curtains fitted over the sliding balcony doors were closed tight. With my enhanced vision, I could see clearly though Evie moved slowly behind me, careful not to bump into anything.

There were two people in the bed. Both vampire I assumed given that it was barely mid-afternoon and they were fast asleep. As per Jo’s orders, Evie closed the door silently and drew her knife, as she stood watchful guard before it.

On silent feet, Jo moved to the curtains and reached through, unlatching the balcony doors and allowing Patrik to step through. I stood beside the bed, watching the rise and fall of the covers as the vampires slept soundly and reached for my rage.

It wasn’t hard to find. Those vampires were the same monsters as that one who had killed my parents. Just the thought of them was enough to stoke the burning heat of anger that coiled within me. As I found it, the shadows came, flowing over my body like fog until I was engulfed.

Jo nodded as she held up the silver ring she had taken from the carved wooden box back in my room. With a touch on the locking mechanism, it sprang open and she gestured to Patrik. He stepped forward and reached down with two big hands, one covering the vampire’s mouth as the other grabbed its throat.

As soon as he moved I reached out my hand, darkness surging outwards. Thick tendrils wrapping around the sleeping vampire closest to me, twisting and coiling around it, holding it tight. As it opened its mouth to cry out, the darkness pushed itself in and down its throat.

“See,” Patrik said as he held the other struggling Vampire. “Easy.”

“Get the lights,” Jo called as she stepped forward with the silver collar and slipped it easily around the vampires throat, just above where Patrik held it and closed the collar with a metallic click.

Immediately the vampire went rigid, eyes widening as pain wracked its body, eyes bulging and face reddening as it stiffened.

“Silver alloy,” Jo said to it as light filled the room. “Just enough silver in there that it will hurt like a son of a bitch for a few minutes. Once you get over the initial shock, it’ll leave you weak and in pain, but able to talk.”

“What about this one?” I asked with a nod towards the figure caught in my grasp.

She shrugged and said, “hold it steady for now.”

“Who are you?” the first vampire asked. Its voice was strained and its fingers were pressed deeply into the covers as though holding on for dear life.

“We ask questions, ja?” Patrik reached down and slapped the top of the vampire's head, as one would a puppy that had just soiled the carpet. Hard enough to show it had done wrong, but not enough to actually hurt.

“Please…” the vampire said. “Don’t hurt us.”

I glanced back at Evie, a frown on her face mirrored the one on my own as I raised an eyebrow and she shrugged. It wasn’t what either of us had expected. Patrik grunted and reached down to pull the vampire upright and I got my first clear look at it.

Male with close-cropped chocolate brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Angular face and slim, though well-built body. He looked like the kind of guy who populated offices the world over. A plain, ordinary person in his thirties who liked to work out and look after himself. There was nothing at all menacing about him.

“You were at the blood club this weekend, ja?”

“Y-yes,” he said. His eyes shifted to his companion and goggled at the darkness that wreathed him. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

The ‘him’ that he referred to, stared up at me with wide eyes of hazel, full of fear. I looked questioningly at Jo but she ignored me as she leaned forward.

“Anahella,” she said. “You know where she is?”

“I can’t,” he replied and Patrik’s great fist collided with his cheek just as his other hand covered the vampire’s mouth to stifle the cry.

“You sure?” Jo asked with a malevolent smile that would have sent chills down anyone’s spine.

“Please, she’ll kill me,” he said as Patrik uncovered his mouth.

“Think we won’t?” she responded and his already pale skin lost the little colour it had.

The vampire looked into her eyes and knew he had little choice. I almost felt sorry for him until I remembered what he was.

“I don’t know where she is,” he said and flinched as Patrik drew back his fist. “Wait! Wait… I know how to contact her though.”

“You think we want her phone number?” Jo said as her face went still. “What use is that to us?”

“Not a phone number.” He licked his lips as his eyes moved, flicking between the three of us around the bed. “You need an invite to join her club.”

“Then how do you receive an invite?” Jo asked as she drew her knife from the sheath on the harness beneath her jacket.

“A website,” he said as his eyes fixed to the knife. The silver blade glinted as it caught the light and he licked his lips before speaking again. “In my wallet, on the table there, I have a card with the address.”

Patrik reached over to the black leather wallet that had been left on the bedside table and flipped it open. His thick fingers reaching in and pulling out an embossed white card. He looked at it and shrugged as he passed it over to Jo.

“Go to that website,” he said. “Make an account and purchase a red orchid from the selection. An invite will come to you within twenty-four hours.”

“Invite to what?” Jo asked as she looked at the card, expression thoughtful.

“A party,” he said, eyes never leaving the blade she held. “One where you will be introduced to the leaders of this region.”

“Leaders?” She looked up as she said it, her eyes meeting his and he flinched.

“Of the families.” His voice was full of fear as he watched her face and saw the confusion there. “You didn’t know?”

“Know what?” Patrik asked.

“The last family was broken twenty years ago,” Jo said as Patrik looked at her in surprise.

“They’ve been re-forming,” the vampire said in a whisper. “The blood club is for family only and you need to earn your place.”

“How?” she asked, poker-faced.

“Please,” he said with a glance to his bound partner, fear thick in his voice. “Don’t hurt us.”

“How?” She repeated as she stepped closer, the knife blade moving to hover just below his eye.

“With an offering…”

Terror filled his tone and Jo’s jaw clenched as she fought to hold herself under control. My eyes met Patrik’s and he shrugged, as bewildered as I was.

Jo stepped closer, the silver point of the blade digging into the skin below his eye. Smoke rose from the hole she made and the sweet smell of burning flesh came to me.

“What offering?” Jo asked in a tone that brooked no refusal to answer.

“S-someone young, full of life,” he said and shrunk back from her expression.

“Young.”

“Yes,” his voice was a whisper.

“You both brought an… offering?” she asked, distaste in her voice.

He licked his lips as he nodded slowly and said, “yes.”

“Where did you find these offerings?”

I glanced back at Evie who was watching with wide eyes. I could feel the tension in the air and the utterly rigid control, Jo was barely holding. Sweat beaded my brow and with a thought, I tightened my grip on the vampire I held with my power.

“Just homeless kids,” he said. “No one would miss them…”

His voice cut off and his eyes widened as Jo pulled the knife and swiftly plunged it down into his chest, straight for his heart. Her eyes held his as the fire moved beneath his skin, burning him to ash. She glanced at me and had no need to speak the order.

The dark tendrils held it still as I pulled free my knife and without a word, struck down into its heart. In moments, the charred edges of the blankets, covered mounds of ash and bone. Patrik reached down and picked up the silver ring before he looked to Jo.

“What now?”

“We head home and make an account,” she said, eyes never leaving the smouldering ash.

****

“Holy crap!” Evie said as soon as we were through the door and back into our own hotel room.

“I know, right?”

“For a minute,” she said as she looked at me. “For a minute, I thought they weren’t that bad. Just two ordinary guys who happen to be vamps.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Her eyes appeared to be lit from within as she practically hopped from foot to foot in excitement. “Then he said that stuff about the kids and… wow!”

“Definitely deserved to die,” I agreed solemnly.

“Too bloody right they did,” she said. For a moment she paused and then looked around the room before back to me. “What now?”

“Now, we stay here,” I said and she blinked owlishly.

“Here?” she said. “After what we just did?”

“It’d raise suspicion if we all did a runner,” I said as I put my dagger down carefully on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed, suddenly weary beyond words. “Jo and Patrik will clean up the room so there’s no evidence we were there.”

“Right.” She looked almost lost for a moment, her eyes losing focus as she looked inward and then a devilish smile formed. “Let’s get room service then.”

“Or we could go down to the bar,” I suggested more than a little hopefully.

“Nah,” she said as she flopped down on the bed beside me. “We can order up some food and maybe some wine, watch some pay-per-view and just relax.”

“Relax sounds good,” I said as I lay back on the oh so comfortable bed. “But if I don’t do something I’ll probably just fall asleep.”

“How can you sleep?” She twisted round to look at me and grinned as she let herself fall back to the bed with a little bounce before she settled beside me. “I’m way too amped to sleep.”

“Using my power takes a lot out of me.” I covered a yawn with one hand as I said it and she giggled.

“Aw, you all sleepy?” she said. Her voice was almost a purr as she reached out one hand to stroke my hair gently. Each time her hand moved through my short hair, slow and comforting, my eyes drooped.

“Quit it,” I said as I raised one hand to bat her away which just brought more giggles from her.

“Make me.”

“Evie! Quit it!” My voice was full of mock outrage that made her giggle turn to full laughter. The sound rich and full of genuine joy as she playfully evaded my attempts to brush her away and kept stroking.

“You get some sleep, all warm and cosy,” she cooed. “I’ll be here to keep you safe.”

“Promise,” I said and stifled another yawn.

“Always,” she replied in such a way that I turned my head to the side so I could look at her.

Her mouth was set in a crooked smile, lips shiny with the gloss she wore and parted, ever so slightly while her eyes flickered with… something. The faint stirrings of emotions that I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with just then.

The urge to lean forward, to cross that divide between us and feel her lips against my own was almost overwhelming. For a moment, I hesitated and saw the look in her eye as she drew back into herself.

“I…”

“It’s fine,” she said though her smile faded a little.

“You’re my best friend. My only real friend.”

“Chill. It’s no big deal.”

“No, it is.”

“Really, it’s fine,” she said as she stood up and walked across that luxuriously thick carpet to the sideboard that held the hotel pamphlets. “Let’s just order food.”

“I don’t want food,” I said, my voice almost a wail. I want you.

That thought came unbidden and I knew I wasn’t ready to admit it to anyone but myself. At the same time, I didn’t want to lose the one person I cared about in the whole goddamned awful world. Part of what held me back from taking that step was the fear that doing so would end that friendship anyway.

“Look,” Evie said. “Forget it. I was just all hyped up from earlier. I’d expected it to be a lot more difficult and the adrenaline was surging. When it all went so easily, I guess I just had a lot of misdirected energy.”

“No,” I said as I pushed my weary body up off the bed. “It’s just that… wait. It was easy wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I just said that.”

“It was really easy,” I said slowly as I thought back to what we’d done. Just walked into a room with two vamps who could afford a top rate room at a five-star hotel but didn’t bother with any security whatsoever. “It shouldn’t have been that easy.”

Evie turned to look at me, her mouth opening to answer when the lights flickered and died. Then the door burst open.