Queen of the Night Time World Read online

  “Now who’s the cocky one?” I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to stop picturing him naked. Swallowing hard did nothing to get the lingering aftertaste of his kiss off my tongue. And from his smirk, he knew he had me where he wanted me. I wanted to trust him, because he needed someone to have his back so bad, but so did I.

  He got off the desk, and I realized I’d never really paid attention to the way he moved before, while he was still dressed, anyway. It wasn’t human at all. It was too fluid, and he was too sure of himself. It screamed sex. I always considered it some crazy attraction—a connection. But it wasn’t. That was how Blade convinced his victims to do as he said. To hold his hand and enter the darkness. I was no better than any of them. He just hadn’t killed me yet.

  “That’s why we make such a great couple.” He was so close the heat was unbearable. There was no denying something had changed between us since the night we spent alone together.

  I wanted to ignite. But I couldn’t.

  “We’re not a couple.”

  He raised his eyebrows, but that was the only reaction he gave. “You’re not doing a very good job of playing the role of grieving widow.”

  “She’s not dead.” I knew it as much as I was breathing. She was not dead.

  “What are you doing to look for her, Holly?” He put his fingers under my chin and forced me to meet his gaze. “Fucking me? Playing house at the Alta Vista? Say she isn’t dead—”

  “She’s not dead.” He was pissing me off, like he knew something I didn’t.

  “Okay. She’s not dead. If she’s got some window back to our world and she’s watching you, what would she think you’re doing?”

  That hurt, because he was right on the money. “I’ve been looking for her.” My voice was barely more than a whisper. “You know why I’m at Alta Vista. I’ve been trying to find the entry point. I know she’s there. I can feel her. I... I got a text from her.”

  His face lit up, which scared me. Even if I hadn’t, Blade had given up on finding Rainey. “How’d you know it was her?”

  “She said I love you.”

  Blade grinned. His heart might not beat anymore, but it hadn’t gone totally rotten yet. “What were you expecting to find, a sign that said, ‘vending, laundry, this way to Gabriel’s Realm’?”

  Still right. And it still hurt. “But the Realm is there.” Things like other dimensions didn’t vanish simply because a hotel got imploded. Gabriel didn’t occupy the same physical space that we did. He borrowed it from time to time, but he was stingy with his own. “I wish I could bring you there.”

  He wriggled his eyebrows. “I do, too. Sounds like my kind of place.”

  “Stop it.” I whacked him, but my hand lingered on his chest and neither of us made an attempt to do anything about it. Could I bring him there? I taught Lennon to travel, and she was nowhere near as powerful a vampire as Blade. “We can do it. I can teach you how to travel.”

  “Oh yeah?” Now he was interested. “What happens when you go to these other places?”

  “I try to go unnoticed, but it never really works. Most of the time, my plan is not to disrupt anything because I can’t control the ripple effect.” I was the thing that didn’t belong. Past, present, and future. “So I do as little damage as possible.”

  “If you erase someone from existence, it will do damage.” Like Gabriel did with Rainey. Blade didn’t say anything else right away, pressing his lips together like he did when he was lost in thought. I was so relieved he was taking this seriously. “You have to prepare yourself for the possibility that it might not work.”

  I scoffed. “Getting you there should be pretty easy. It seems like it’s an extension of the moving fast thing.”

  “I mean, Rainey might not be able to leave that Realm.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. At all.

  “And if she can, Gabriel’s gonna be pissed when you bust in there and take her.” He grinned. “It could start a war.”

  I hadn’t considered that, either. My eyes were squarely on the prize—Rainey. “Gabriel’s an angel. Do you think warmongering is a thing with angels?”

  He did fight dirty, though.

  “Gabriel might be in another Realm, but he’s on Earth. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about religion, but I never considered Heaven to be finite. There should be room for everyone, unless they don’t belong there.” Blade had possibly spent as much time thinking about Gabriel as I had, for completely different reasons. “I’ve seen him in action at the bar. His intentions aren’t always good, Holly. For anyone but him. That’s another thing you have to prepare yourself for.”

  I was prepared, all right. I’d do whatever it took to get Rainey back and I didn’t give a fuck about the cost. I had forever to pay it back, with interest. I couldn’t die, and I didn’t sweat the small stuff. “I refuse to let him beat me before I even try.”

  Blade didn’t have an answer for that.

  “So, are you in? You said you’d help me find her.” Hysteria felt just like fire as it built inside me. But unlike my flames, it could do permanent damage if I wasn’t careful. “I want to trust you, Blade. You’re the type of person I want fighting beside me.”

  His head jerked back in surprise. “Why’s that?”

  “Because.” It all made sense in my head but I had a hard time finding the words. “You believe in love more than anyone I’ve ever met. And you want it as badly as I do.”

  THE CROWD CHANTED MY name long before I hit the stage. I learned to block everything else out—the camera crew and the producers—as I walked down the hallway backstage. I channeled my energy, which was a raw power churning below the surface of my skin, and keep it from turning sour. The singsong rhythm of my name was the spark that kept me lucid. Blade was a quick, dirty fix, but he’d hold my hand and jump into the bile of the vampire underworld with me. The audience, with their pure hopefulness and adoration, pulled me back. I needed them more than I needed oxygen.

  The Afterlife kept me sane. It was order in a world that no longer made sense to me. Not that it really ever made sense. The show gave me something familiar, something to come home to when my home had been taken from me. It was the little things like Tristan and the rest of the band coming over to high-five me and laughing when they tapped my wing after we nailed a transition together. Or Lennon bringing tea to my dressing room, and even Callie asking me if I needed anything in my hotel room. I was getting comfortable here, despite my insistence it was only temporary. I’d only stay until Rainey came back.

  Not everything was perfect. Rachel spent more time than ever at Sin City Vampire Club. She and Callie had become besties, and they sat together on the road case at the side of the stage, the conversation always coming to an abrupt and painful halt when I passed. Rachel’s gaze was glued to me while I performed, and I refused to let her know how uncomfortable her obsession made me. I knew better than to befriend her, because that was how she’d break me. Little did she know her presence helped keep everything in check.

  No matter how much things changed, some things never would, like the way I collapsed on my dressing room floor in a heap after I ignited. Cool, dark, and quiet. I clutched the fire blanket and listened to my blood thrum through my veins. It was louder after I burned. My skin was paper-thin and it was almost impossible to keep my emotions in. Or the bad stuff out.

  That’s when I felt it. The vibration. It was painful at first, but I relished it, as I shook the blanket away from my head.

  “Rainey?” My voice was weak and dry, but the feeling was so strong, so familiar, there was no way I could be alone. The only lights in the room were the dimmed bulbs around my vanity. No shadows moved against the walls. But she was here, I knew it.

  Or I’d burned my brain.

  “Rainey!” The word had power this time, and I crawled across the room. Using the couch to steady myself, the blanket fell away as I stood. The buzzing was almost unbearable, only made tolerable by the knowledge that
she was nearby. The veil between the Realms had thinned, possibly burned like my skin, and I had to get to her before everything went back to normal.

  I stumbled around the room, moving toward the energy. It made me dizzy, and I couldn’t find the source of it. I laughed. Either I was going crazy or Rainey was really here and I wouldn’t believe it until I put my arms around her, and tasted her lips against mine. Where the fuck was she?

  Touching every surface, I prayed I could break through. I knew I was running out of time. My skin had that tight, pink feeling it did every night on the way to recovery, and I was starting to feel solid again. My fingers would soon callus, and I’d be numb. But the vibration didn’t fade. It was as clear as the night she sent me the text message.

  Her phone. I brought it everywhere, along with some of her favorite crystals and some spells I scribbled down on pieces of paper. I had no idea how she carried all those books and rocks around. Her bag weighed a ton. The only time I didn’t have it with me was when I went on stage and when I went to Embrace. That place was beyond help and I was after something completely different there.

  I dug through my bag, the vibration so strong it was overwhelming. I put my hand on the mirror to steady myself, and everything went black.

  Chapter Ten

  “She needs help!” someone cried, grabbing the man she was with and pointing to me. Horror was plain on her face; an ugly, frozen expression that probably reflected what she saw. The thing that struck me the most was how much she was affected by my appearance. She clapped her hand over her mouth to strangle a sob.

  Bad things weren’t par for the course in Gabriel’s Realm. A crowd had gathered around me, but no one had the balls to touch my charred skin as I came to. For once, I wished I was all vamp so I could hiss at them and make them scatter.

  But the sun that beat through the wall of windows would burn me more. I was almost healed when I was in my dressing room. Realm-to-Realm transport probably set my recovery back, and I hoped it meant I hadn’t gone backward. I always travelled to the past or the future—never a sideways trip to another dimension. The vibration intensified; Rainey was near. She had to be. I had no one to pray to, and no one to help me.

  I didn’t have to hiss to get the crowd to part. I scared them with my matted, filthy hair and my ruined skin. Another woman insisted I needed help, but no one offered. Instead, they followed me down the long hallway of the Sahara. Thanks to The Afterlife, I had plenty of practice ignoring people who called to me, as well as walking around naked with an audience.

  The resort looked the same as the last time I was here, and it didn’t comfort me. If I found the express lane to Gabriel’s past, it wouldn’t lead me to Rainey.

  I wasn’t the only one naked, which was a relief. That hadn’t changed from my last visit, either, along with the beds in the middle of the casino, and the public sex. I went right over to the one of the beds, unsure of what I was looking for but convinced I’d know it when I saw it. No one there noticed me. Didn’t matter how close I got. They were so wrapped up in their own pleasure, and their partners’ pleasure, that their eyes were glazed over, like a zombie orgy. That was different than last time. An ache burned deep inside me, a true emptiness. Like this was the first time I was really able to feel the magnitude of my loss, that being here didn’t guarantee I’d find Rainey.

  “Are you okay?” Another woman that I hadn’t noticed before came up behind me. She was the only one who dared touch me. She backed away when I gasped, the closest thing to a hiss I had. My skin was so thin, and her energy could seep in...

  It did. And it was overwhelmingly good. This woman was happy. Not pure, but there was nothing keeping her up at night. I drew away, because I needed the bite of anxiety for things to feel right.

  A little darkness to soothe my soul.

  “I need to find her,” was all I could say. I didn’t know how to describe Rainey. The most beautiful woman in this Realm or any other bordered on hyperbole, even if it were true. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be wearing her sparkly fishnets anymore. She wore them for me.

  “Who are you looking for?” The woman brushed her hand against the one I recoiled from, like my energy had transmitted to her through the grit and ash. From her expression, she didn’t like it very much. “There are plenty of ladies who will be happy to see you once we get you cleaned up.”

  “Sounds like my kind of place,” I joked, because I was dangerously close to scaring this woman away. Many had been willing to help but she was the only one brave enough to touch me. Usually, that would’ve been a deal breaker, but the contact made me feel like I was actually here. A part of what was going on. “But I’m not looking for sex.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Then why did you come to Las Vegas?”

  Her gaze raked over my body. I wished I could tell her the truth. “I’m looking for someone named Rainey. Rainey Devereaux.” If that was even her name here. My name wasn’t really Holly Octane, but my stage persona was the only one that mattered. “She’s a fortune teller.”

  The woman’s expression changed to confusion. I didn’t expect her to know Rainey, but I hoped she could point me in the right direction of someone who might know her. “I don’t know what that is,” she said.

  “It’s a person who reads cards and can See the future.” It never occurred to me there would be no need for that in the happiest place on Earth. Or that Rainey’s life had completely changed since she disappeared. Whatever she was doing here would be her true purpose. Reading cards for others was something she did to pass the time while trying to keep my ass in line.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help you. But if you want to get cleaned up... Do you have a room here?”

  “No.” I knew I couldn’t stay. And I couldn’t follow her to her room. It could be a trap, all this happiness. Even I knew better than to follow a stranger. “What about Gabriel? Do you know who he is?”

  “Gabriel who?”

  I shrugged. “He runs the place.”

  She picked up her pendant. “You mean the Gabriel?”

  I stepped closer to examine the design on the metal. I’d be damned if it wasn’t Gabriel’s face. Holy shit. I had to swallow my reaction and let it get lost in the vibration. “That’s the one.”

  Gabriel was a god here. No matter what he was, this woman thought enough of him to have him hanging from her neck. His daughter wouldn’t be reading cards somewhere, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t find her on one of these beds. No, she wouldn’t do that willingly. But she let Blade into our bed... for me. And Gabriel had enough of a pull over her that she left. If I found her here, I didn’t know how I’d react. But I had to come to grips that I wouldn’t find the same Rainey that had left me.

  “Oh, honey. You’re not going to find him here, on the main floor.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  I almost said I saw him here before, but it wouldn’t help my cause. I couldn’t ask what year I was in. I had to remember what this Realm had in common with the one I was familiar with—I had no friends, here, either. Only Rainey.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’ve been helpful.”

  I relied on my memory and the buzzing in my brain to guide me. I ducked into a restroom and cleaned myself up. Under the soot, my skin was tight and pink, but it softened under my touch. I recovered quickly here, and I felt different. Good. Maybe because I didn’t have the dread of a vampire waiting for me outside my door, or the fear that someone evil had taken Rainey and they’d come for me, too. But I couldn’t get lost in the euphoria that intoxicated everyone else in this Realm. Gabriel wasn’t all good. I had no proof to back up my claim, but I had a feeling that was why he wanted Rainey. Angels fed from energy, too.

  If he used her for her light, drained everything out of her, then threw her away, I’d burn him.

  Now that I was back to my pre-performance self, I was getting much more attention on what should’ve been the casino floor. I didn’t know what to call it. The fucking floor? The or
gy room? They responded to beauty and ignored or were repulsed by me before. That didn’t change from Realm to Realm. I teased my audience, but the wiles that usually made both men and women quake in my presence didn’t do anything here. Everyone was a master of seduction at the Sahara, and it was hard to stay focused. The only thing I had left to fight with was fire. And I needed to save that for the darkness.

  “Do you know Rainey?” I kept asking, but I either got blank looks, apologies, or promises that I’d forget all about Rainey if I’d just get on the damn bed. Impossible.

  The vibration changed, like I wasn’t breathing the same kind of oxygen. I was getting lightheaded, and if Rainey found me on one of these beds with people feasting on me like a bunch of vampires would to a donor at Embrace...

  I shouldn’t have come here alone.

  “What about Gabriel?” My voice was husky, and it took everything I had to resist the man who locked my wrists in one of his massive hands. He was solid muscle, and judging by the man who wrapped his arm around my captor’s waist, it seemed like he might be more interested in Gabriel than my Rainey.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You want to fuck Gabriel?”

  Not on my best day. “I want to talk to him.”

  The men looked at each other and chuckled like I told a joke that wasn’t very funny, but they still wanted to get me on that mattress. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Then tell me how it works.”

  He got my knee onto the mattress, and his breath was warm against my ear. “You start on the floor, and you get the attention of his people—”

  “I already have the attention of his people.” More like I had his attention. But since Rainey disappeared, he hadn’t bothered to send me any messages.

  The man’s gaze raked over my body. “I’m sure you do. Then why are you here?”

  I tugged my hands free. The guy wasn’t prepared for how strong I was.