Among The Shadows (Inner Demons Book 2) Read online

  Among the Shadows

  Inner Demons, Book Two

  Kellie Sheridan

  Copyright © 2019 by Kellie Sheridan

  kelliesheridan.com

  patchwork-press.com

  All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction.

  Any portion thereof may not be reproduced or use

  in any manner without the express written permission

  of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations

  in a book review.

  Cover design by Hell Yes Designs

  Junior Editor: Kala Godin

  Contents

  Among the Shadows

  Inner Demons, Book Two

  Kellie Sheridan

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter One

  Once upon a time, I’d been very good at drinking alone. These days, I was barely drinking at all. Which was probably why I felt particularly miserable sitting by myself at the bar in Release, a glass of water in my hand, trying to make myself as small as possible as partiers crowded in around me, trying to get another round.

  A few feet away, Leah was going a mile a minute, back and forth between taking orders and making drinks. She’d warned me that this would be a lousy night for me to go with her to work, but I hadn’t listened. For the last week, she’d promised to keep an eye out for Theo every time she went in to her bartending gig, and so far, there’d been no sight of him.

  I’d hoped that an extra set of eyes would help, but so far, I’d mostly spent my time watching my own reflection in the mirror behind the bar. I’d tried doing a couple laps around the club, but the crowd had only put me in a bad mood. Starting at the dance floor, looking for one person among many made me feel like a creep. And taking up a spot near the back wall had left me with too limited a field of vision.

  So, the bar it was. One spot that most people would hit sooner or later, and that absolutely everyone had to walk by on their way in or out. But no Theo.

  What had happened to him between helping us with Wallace and now? It was hard not to worry that wherever he’d gone afterward had led to bad news.

  Before I’d learned who he was and what he was doing at Release, he’d been here every time I had. Now that I knew his reasons for coming out where the same as ours, vampires, his absence was particularly noted.

  I was probably worrying for nothing, and he was somewhere else. In another club or another feeding ground, in another city, doing his duty as a Sentinel. Either that, or he was doing the sane-person-thing and taking a little time off.

  Still, two weeks was a long time. That was how long it had been since he’d attacked me on the street, assuming I was a vampire, and then helped us deal with the reality of what Wallace had become while we weren’t looking. All of which I still had so many questions about.

  Questions I couldn’t ask if I never saw him again.

  I was still sitting on the stool I’d claimed, but turned my body out toward the dance floor, on the lookout for a familiar head of brown hair when something slammed up against my shoulder. I spun my stool, ready to respond. Ready to defend myself.

  But there was no threat waiting for me, just a girl with curly blonde hair who had clearly had far too much to drink. She didn’t even seem to realize she’d bumped me, too busy draping herself over the guy she was getting drinks with. A guy who looked a couple years too young to even be in a place like this.

  I spun back around, hoping to catch Leah’s eye, see if she’d noticed the high schooler in our ranks as glass shattered somewhere nearby. The crash proceeded a round of woops from everyone nearby. Another glass lost to a night of drunken shenanigans. All I saw of Leah was her back as she sprinted under the counter toward the newest disaster.

  It should’ve been the final straw for the evening, enough to get me back home a little earlier than planned. Or at least I would have if I hadn’t spotted something strange in the mirror. Something that should have been impossible.

  In the dark of the club, with bottles lining the mirror and postcards up everywhere, the reflection I was looking at didn’t exactly give a crystal clear view of anything. But I could see the young guy slinging back a beer beside me. And no blonde.

  I looked back to where I’d just seen the girl, my brain trying to make sense of what I thought I was seeing. The blonde was still there, her arm still draped over the kid, still laughing too loud as her other hand braced itself against his chest. All while she was casting absolutely no reflection in the mirror in front of her.

  Vampire?

  I looked back to the mirror. Still no blonde.

  Definitely a vampire!

  And there was no sign of Leah.

  Leaving my drink behind, I stood up from the bar, knowing I needed backup. Leah would know what to do.

  But I wasn’t the only one getting up. Beside me, the blonde was moving away from the bar, still hanging off her date, with no sense of the people around her, and no reflection.

  I pretended to study the crowd as though looking for a friend, hoping the two of them would head to the dance floor, knowing they wouldn’t. The blonde was a vampire, and by the look of it, she’d already gotten what she’d come for. They were headed for the door. That poor kid, probably thinking he was about to have the best night of his life.

  I risked one last glance behind me, hoping that Leah would appear in the nick of time. There was no sign of her dark hair or slender frame. I was on my own, following the two would be lovebirds outside into the night.

  Mackenzie: Leah, I found a vampire! A blonde girl at the bar. She left with this young guy. I tried to wait for you, but there wasn’t time.

  Things outside of Release were far quieter than inside. March in Toronto could be hit and miss with the weather, but so far this year’s theme seemed to be slush. A light dusting of snow fluttered down to the ground, which would have been pretty if it wasn’t all melting into a giant puddle by the time it hit pavement.

  The vamp and her prey were only a few feet away from me as the kid held out a lighter to help her light a joint. I could have had her off of him in a few seconds flat if it weren’t for the foursome standing between us, all outside for a smoke. My training was still only very much beginning, and we hadn’t gone anywhere near how to handle attacking vampires in view of the public. My guess was, the whole thing was probably frowned on.

  So far, the two of them were still laughing and flirting, slowly making their way away from Release. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought they were having a fantastic time.

  Shoving my hands in my pockets, I followed behind, still hoping Leah was already on her way.

  The vampire led her target down the first street they approached. If I remembered correctly, it was one way and lined with little shops. At this time of night, it was usually next to dead. The blonde wou
ldn’t need to work all that hard to find somewhere to feed.

  Passing by a large shrub, I paused to snap off the largest branch I could find. As far as weapons went, it wasn't great, but it was all I had.

  I'd never leave the house without a stake on me again, that was for sure.

  Cursing every second lost, I quickened my pace and turned down the same street they had a few seconds later. And found myself totally alone.

  Shit.

  If they’d gone into one of the shops, I was already out of luck. The lights were off everywhere, not a single storefront still open to the public.

  Mackenzie: Left out of R. First left.

  There was a good chance none of this would matter anymore, but if there was any chance Leah could get here in time to help, I would take it.

  It was tempting to start moving at a run, to cover as much ground as I could in as little time possible. But they really had only been a minute or less ahead of me. They had to be nearby. So instead, I slowed down. To my right, was a row of shops, all connected in one long building. But the side of the street I was already on offered a few more possibilities. A dumpster sat between the convenience store and the tailor’s shop I passed first. But beside that was a narrow little alleyway, almost perfectly dark.

  And a fresh set of footprints in in the snow.

  That’s when I ran.

  I was between the tailor and their neighbors’ shop in two seconds, eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. It didn't take much help from my newly enhanced vision to spot the two people curled into one another.

  My body tried to stop in its tracks and surge forward in the same moment. I knew what needed to be done. I hated that I would be the one to do it.

  "Excuse me?" I called out. I pulled my phone out, illuminating the space around me in time to see the blonde girl who had bumped into me earlier, look up from the spot where she'd nestled into her date's neck. Her mouth was wet with blood.

  The moment of pride I felt for getting this right disappeared as my training transformed into instinct. Somehow, I was able to calculate in my mind, exactly the kind of maneuver I would need in order to set the vampire off balance while also getting her a safe distance away from her new victim, who was already wobbling on his feet. I hit her at a run, using my arms to shove her back, while my body weight pushed the teenager to the ground. As long as we didn't trample him, he'd be far safer out of the way. They both shrieked out a mix of pain and surprise, leaving my grateful for the secluded spot she'd chosen to escape to.

  I'd imagined my first vampire fight hundreds of times already by then, trying to play through every possible scenario in order to work out the best way to keep myself alive.

  The reality, at least this version of it, was far easier than I'd imagined. As the blonde got an arm around me and push me aside, there was no denying she was strong. But she was also untrained. As my left fist flew forward, she made no effort to get out of the way, letting me land an easy punch to the center of her face, snapping her neck backward.

  That was more of an opening than I thought I'd get. Adjusting my grip, I leveled the branch I'd grabbed and rammed it toward the vampire's chest.

  It didn't so much as pierce her skin. And it gave her a chance grab my wrist and twist it backward, away from her heart and damn near away from my whole body. A scream wrenched itself from my throat as white hot pain ripped through my arm, a hundred times worse than anything I'd ever felt in my sparring sessions with Leah or Arthur.

  One sharp kick to the stomach sent the vampire hurtling backward, forcing her to loosen her grip on my arm. I doubted it was broken, but it still didn't feel nice.

  And now I was on my own in the dark with a vamp and no weapon to kill it. I'd thought through the wooden part of using a stake but hadn't accounted for making it sharp enough to push through the sternum.

  Which left me with what exactly? Could I knock her unconscious and wait for Leah to get here and tell me what to do? I didn’t know if that was even possible with vampires.

  The young guy groaned from the ground, and I had it. An idea, if not a good one.

  I rolled to the ground as quickly as I could. The guy scrambled away from me, terrified and confused, but he was far easier to overpower than a vampire. "Lighter. I need your lighter," I hissed, shoving my hand into one pocket of his coat, then the other. I found my target, the front pocket of his jeans.

  I had a weapon, now I just needed to regain the upper hand and act quickly.

  Lunging upward, I sprung myself on the vampire like a cat, moving quickly enough that she didn't have any time to adjust her positioning her make her own attack. She did manage to scratch me across the face, but as she was focused on that, I had my own girl-fight move in mind.

  My hand wrapped around the vampire’s hair, yanking her head back as my other hand readied the lighter. With the click of a button, the world's tiniest fire came to life in my hands. I brought it toward the vamp's blonde hair as fast as I could, hoping the seclusion from the wind would be enough to keep the fire burning.

  She went up in seconds. I didn't really know how quickly a regular human's hair would catch fire, but this bitch seemed particularly flammable. Flames ripped through her hair and spread to the rest of her body in seconds as she screamed silently and fell to the ground. In less than a minute, she had withered away entirely to dust.

  I was still staring on in horror when I heard footsteps nearby. From my dark vantage point, I had no problem spotting Leah as she sprinted by me on the street. "Leah!" I called out after her. She found us a few moments later, eyes frantic for the threat I'd alerted her too.

  "It's okay. I got it. I killed her." My stomach lurched up as pride continued to pump through my veins. I'd killed someone. Someone who was already dead, yeah. But someone who had once been alive, and who had probably had a family who loved her, no matter how long ago.

  "Really?" Leah's eyebrow quirked up with obvious doubt.

  "Yes, really. I used a lighter and lit her hair on fire. She was gone in an instant, it was unreal."

  "Nice!" Leah clapped her hands together with a level of glee that seemed a little extreme for the scenario, but at least she believed me. "How is..." She looked around the alleyway until her gaze settled on the boy still cowering in the corner. Back at the bar, I'd thought he was seventeen or eighteen, just a little under the legal drinking age. Now, cowering in the corner against a garbage can, he looked so much younger.

  "Alive. I don't think she took much from him. But I also don't know how much he saw."

  Leah waved a dismissive hand in his direction. "As long as he's conscious, I don't think we have much to worry about. The blood haze will take care of anything he saw. We’ll get it cleaned up so the bite doesn’t infect his blood stream. Then tomorrow morning this will all feel like a terrible dream."

  "Blood haze?"

  "Like what happened to you. When a vampire bites their victims, they release a toxin into the bloodstream that acts as both a memory suppressant with some mild psychoactive properties. We should get him back to a more populated area, maybe even call an ambulance for him, but the rest will take care of itself. A natural defense mechanism." Squatting down in front of the boy, Leah reached a hand out to him. "How are you doing, kid?" She looked up at me, shaking her head. "He's so young. What was he even doing out here?"

  "Nothing good, obviously. But it could have ended a lot worse for him." I'd killed his attacker! It still completely boggled my mind that I'd not only managed to stay alive but had destroyed an actual vampire in the process. "Now let's get him back home."

  Chapter Two

  The next morning came too quickly. Those days, that was usually the case.

  It was a little after seven in the morning by the time I'd managed to get dressed and showered, and a little after that when I made my way back to the Toronto level of Serra's home. I was halfway down the stairs, on my way out as Arthur was coming back in.

  "Good morning," I said, making it to the final step. br />
  "Is it? I'm more inclined to say good night." Arthur rubbed his temples as he kicked off his shoes. "I need sleep."

  "Are you just getting in now?" I asked, taken aback. While Leah and I were at Release the night before, Arthur had been busy patrolling a few neighborhoods over. After Theo had confirmed everything we'd suspected about Release, we'd been trying to focus more of our efforts there. But Toronto was a big city, and reports of neck injuries were cropping up all over. We were spread thin, and since Leah was working at the bar, Arthur frequently drew the short straw on covering the rest of the city, or at least as much as he could manage.

  "Yes," he groaned. "And I'm supposed to be waking up in like three hours."

  "Did something happen last night?" I asked. It must have, for Arthur to be getting back to the house so late. Or early? Usually, we were all called it a night after most of the city's nightlife closed up shop.

  Arthur nodded, rolling his shoulders to try to loosen up some of the tension he was feeling. "Can I tell you about it later? I really need to sleep."

  "Of course. And we've got a story for you too. But it can all wait. The important thing is that you made it back, right?"

  "Mmm," was the only answer I got since Arthur already headed up the way I'd come. Probably for the best since I was already running a little behind on my own plans for the day.

  By then, I'd at least been smart enough to invest in a monthly transit pass, making it cheaper but not easier to get across the city on what was turning out to be a near daily basis. Pocketing the little green card, I stepped out of the subway station in front of my therapist's office two minutes before my appointment was supposed to start.

  I'd been seeing Doctor Bogle for several months by then, part of an effort to recover from my sister's death. Since learning what had really killed Evie, I'd been a little less reliable when it came to making appointments, but I was trying. Mostly because of what had happened two weeks ago when a man I'd thought I'd known had turned out not to be a man at all. My friend Serra's father, Wallace, had been in the process of changing himself into a vampire, and had attacked someone as a result. I'd been the one to carry Xavier's bleeding body out of the house, so sure with every second that I was already too late.