Page 40 of A Shade Too Far
Jude called my name and I gave her the rundown on what had happened so she’d be prepared for any questions about magic or vampires, proud of my steady voice.
Laurent occasionally glanced over, but he remained silent.
My best friend assured me she’d leave out all details about Zev wanting to kill her for a (wrongly) perceived betrayal and that she’d take good care of her niece. As genuinely glad as I was that Sadie had this support system, I couldn’t help the melancholy that settled over me.
When we got to my employer’s house, Laurent asked if I was coming in, but I shook my head, too distracted to say bye to my boss or Emmett.
Thankfully, Laurent didn’t pry for more details or make some empty, sympathetic statement. He simply asked me to phone him once I’d seen Zev.
I tried to take Jude’s advice not to worry to heart, but I drove home with a hollow feeling inside me. Sadie had never actively avoided me before. Had I been too quick to believe that she’d accepted my magic simply because I wished it were true?
I flicked on some music, focusing on the lyrics of a forgettable pop song and getting myself home without rear-ending another car. However, inside my townhouse, I drifted aimlessly from room to room.
If my magic was too much for Sadie, would I do what was best for her or for myself? What if what was best for me triggered my daughter’s anxiety? It was one thing to tell her to suck it up if I was going to date again and she didn’t want to share, but magic was a whole other—and far more deadly—ball game. Even if I stopped using my powers—
Delilah jumped from the floor to the ceiling to the top of the television like a manic squirrel before grabbing me in a headlock. Our psychic connection right now had a sharp, dark edge, like teeth, and my skin suddenly felt paper-thin.
“Stop!” Grimacing, I forced Delilah back onto the ground. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Somewhat mollified, she lost her solidity, becoming a dark mass that twined around my ankles like a cat.
“Yeah, yeah.” The shadow became inanimate, but I rubbed my ankle, loath to lose the lingering sensation of her touch.
Lonestars had the ability to modify Sapien memories. Technically, that was a possibility for Sadie if her anxiety wouldn’t let her deal with her new knowledge, but it made my skin crawl. Yes, I’d waited for the perfect moment to tell her about magic, but sending her blindly out into the world wasn’t an option. Not anymore.
Going upstairs into my bedroom, I retrieved the blank domino tile, turning the smooth block between my fingers. Emmett had tagged me as a domino in a prophecy at our first meeting, and a game of memory with a shapeshifter called Poe had implied that I was a wild card. There was infinite possibility in being a blank. In being unpredictable. I could be an agent of chaos or an anchor to turn the tide of events in my favor.
But there was such a thing as too much freedom. Blanks could hook to any other tile, which was great in theory, but all the combinations pulling at me from every direction were overwhelming. I shoved the drawer closed again, feeling restless and edgy.
Since I had to shake it off before my visit to Blood Alley and I had some time to kill before night fell, I changed into workout clothes and headed for the Zumba class at my local community center.
I’d been a regular at this class for a few years though my attendance since I’d gotten magic had become a bit spotty. The workout was attended by women of all ages, ethnicities, and body types, and after greeting a bunch of other regulars, I took my usual spot in the back row while our instructor, Kate, fired up the warm-up song.
The choreography was always fun, and I generally did a pretty good job of zoning out to the music, but tonight was different. I couldn’t stop watching the other participants. Sure, the young woman ahead of me had a great body and dance training, but she gave an encouraging “whoot” to an older woman with an explosion of gray curls who only got about twenty percent of the choreography but danced like this was the most fun she’d ever had.
No one here was judging anyone. After everything that had gone down recently, why was I still exiling myself to the back row with the other people who were self-conscious about moving their hips and getting into the groove? No one here was going to look askance, and if they did, so what?
I was out there touting my ability to handle myself in the magic world and yet hiding away in a fun dance class because I didn’t believe I was good enough? I shook my head.
For the first time ever, I threw myself into the music with the same abandon as when I danced around my bedroom. Even Kate noticed, shimmying over during one song to slap my butt with a scarf while I ground lower and lower in time to the beat.
When a remix of “Proud Mary” came on for the last cardio number, I hit it with everything I had, shaking my hips, wagging my fingers, and strutting my stuff.
The exhilaration stayed with me through the changing room and the drive to Gastown, where I parked a couple of blocks away from the entrance to Blood Alley. Humming under my breath, I did a little two-step along the sidewalk, until the gates to the vamp’s territory appeared in front of me.
Blood Alley existed both as a real two-block stretch of restaurants in Vancouver and a much larger hidden space that the vampires operated as a renowned Ohrist attraction. Our own Sin City.
I’d gotten a lot better at seeing these spaces, which took the same kind of mental energy and visual gymnastics as revealing those annoying 3D stereogram puzzles. I didn’t even require my cloaking to see the entrance anymore. It was like a switch flipped in my brain, and the metal sign spelling out “Blood Alley” with gargoyles at each corner appeared.
Beyond it were four narrow crooked lanes lined with black lacquered doors, each with one to three red light bulbs above them, denoting the level of danger (as perceived by vampires, not humans) behind each one. At the top of the hill where all the roads converged was a huge, round limestone nightclub called Rome. The name smacked of Zev’s rarely seen wry sense of humor.
His office was in its basement, so I pushed through the crowds seeking the night’s entertainment and headed uphill. Two Ohrists tumbled out of one of the many bars, one using psionic power to blast her opponent into a wall. The second woman managed to flick her fingers before she crashed into it, and the psionic’s legs broke with loud snaps. Screaming, she hit the ground.
At this point, two vamps showed up, grabbing the women and throwing them over their shoulders, before speeding up to Rome in a blur.
The crowd went quiet. Very, very quiet. People meekly shuffled into various rooms, doors closing behind them and bulbs washing the street in a red glow. A Red Sea, so to speak.
And on that topic…
