Author: Kalayna Price

“Samantha?” I asked, remembering the name on Tatius’s note. The woman who’d brought me to Tatius’s room last night had also been a Samantha, but this wasn’t the same woman. Hell, if this was another Samantha, she was the third vampire by that name I’d met in Haven.

Her smile slipped an inch, and she tapped a finger against her cheek, her black polished nail pressing against a small red birthmark. “That’s right,” she said. “You’re new. You wouldn’t know. Well, let’s get this over with.”

She strolled further in the room. Turning, she gave me a wink. “Ready?”

Ready for what? I didn’t have time to ask.

Her appearance rippled, and like one image unfolding to reveal another, changed. Her long dark hair flowed into blond, her makeup brightened, and her body rounded out to voluptuous curves. Even her dress changed from a revealing red to clinging silver sequins. The only thing that didn’t change was the small red birthmark on her cheek.

“More familiar now?” she asked, twirling and making the edge of her skirt lift.

I blinked, my jaw going slack. I most definitely recognized her now. I’d met her during my first visit to Death’s Angel.

She was probably also the redhead who’d brought me here last night. But how did she… “An Illusion?” I asked.

“Like the Hermit?” She shook head and her appearance rippled again, changing back to the dark-haired woman who’d first entered the room. “I’m called the Chameleon. I’m a master soldier.”

She said it like that should mean something to me. I just stared at her. “Soldier?”

“A soldier vampire as opposed to a psychic vamp,” she said, and then, looking at my expression, laughed and shook her head. “Deary, you really are new. It’s a blood-line title. Us solider vamps are stronger, faster, and we can turn humans easier than you psychic vamps, but we don’t have the euphoric bite or the mental powers. Hasn’t the Hermit taught you anything?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Well, don’t worry. Tatius will take good care of you. Now let’s get you in that dress.”

An hour later, I was fully dressed—in a manner of speaking—my hair was piled artfully atop my head, and Sam had attacked my face with half a dozen cosmetic brushes.

She stepped back, pursing her lips, but she nodded.

“That should do it, deary. Why don’t you take a look?” She pointed to the full-length mirror on the other side of the room.

I stumbled over, my ankles wobbling in the spike-heeled boots. When I reached the mirror, I scowled at the stranger inside. The corset was indeed a torture device, which Sam had pulled tight enough that I was lucky I didn’t actually need to breathe. It tugged my waist in, making my non-existent hips look rounder and pushing up my chest, exposing maximum amounts of my small cleavage. It could have been a good look. After all, the shiny black dress and thigh high boots transformed me into someone who’d belong on Tatius’s arm. But the woman in the mirror looked uncomfortable, fake.

I turned my back on the mirror.

Samantha stood several steps behind, admiring her handy work. “I think you’re ready. We should get you to Tatius.”

Of course. She walked out of the room. I started to follow, but as I reached the doorway, a tingle of magic rushed over my skin, and I froze. Oh no. Gil wouldn’t seriously show up here, would she?

An unmistakable pop sounded from further in the bedroom. Magic filled the air.

Dammit. Not now. I couldn’t let Samantha see Gil.

“I, uh, forgot something,” I said, grabbing the doorknob.

Samantha looked back over her shoulder. “Wha—”

“Be right back.” I jerked the bedroom door shut.

A fist pounded on the door from the other side. “Kita, what’s going on?”

The knob jiggled in my grasp. Crap.

I whirled around to face Gil and mouthed the words “Go. Get out.”

“Just five minutes,” the mage said. A bristly wave of magic washed over me, and I fell into blackness that wasn’t true darkness.

* * * *

I screamed. The darkness absorbed the sound before it could escape my throat. A moment? An eternity? I fell through the space between worlds. Or maybe I didn’t fall. But I sure as hell wasn’t standing. I hated the void. I was so going to hurt Gil.

I swallowed hard. I might hurt Gil, but if Tatius discovered I was gone, he would kill Nathanial. I’d bargained for Nathanial’s life with my cooperation. Tatius would definitely consider my disappearance as reneging on that promise. I couldn’t let that happen.

I had to get back to Death’s Angel.

I’d no sooner had the thought than the empty darkness shattered. Light and color exploded around me in a chaotic jumble. I saw stars, literally. Hundreds of pinpricks of light filled my vision.

I squeezed my eyes shut and doubled over as a wave of nausea slammed into me.

“Dammit, Gil. How much time passed?” I gasped the question. The world was too solid, too real after the void. But I couldn’t stay wherever she’d taken me. Pushing away from the grass beneath me, I wrenched my eyes open. “You have to get me back to Death’s Angel. Now.”

“This will just take a—”

“Now!”

In my still blurry vision, the pink-coated Gil-ish blob backed up. Then it stopped and little pink arms crossed in front of it.

“No.”

“Gil, I don’t have time for this. Nathanial and I have a situation on our hands. If I don’t get back before Tatius realizes I’m gone—”

“No, Kita Nekai of Firth,” she said, her voice firmer than I’d ever heard it. “No. Have you forgotten the Judge’s mark on your back? He’s out there, searching for proof you are too dangerous to be allowed to live. You told me yourself that you scratched several men when they attacked you months ago. We know Tyler was tagged and became a dangerous rogue. What if one of the others was tagged as well? What if the judge finds him? The judge will blame you. I’m doing this to keep you alive, so you should be more appreciative and helpful.” She turned and marched past a stone mausoleum.

My fingers moved reflexively to the small of my back, where, under all the layers of vinyl, the Judge’s mark coiled, the tattoo-like snakes twisting and slithering in the shape of a Celtic knot. Gil was right. I needed to find out if there were any other tagged shifters. But if Tatius thinks I’ve broken our agreement… Nathanial… I looked around. Gil had disappeared around the corner of a crypt. She said five minutes. Hopefully Tatius wouldn’t notice if I was gone for just five minutes. I hurried after Gil.

Or at least I tried to.

It had rained recently, and the ground was moist, soft—not a good thing for four-inch spike heels, especially when I could barely walk in the damn things to start with. The heels sank with every other step, stopping me, making me work to get free again. Then one of the heels snapped. Dammit!

I rolled the boots down and stepped out of them. Grabbing the boots and the broken heel, I marched in my fishnets across the damp grass. I finally caught up with Gil in front of a cast-iron gate blocking the doorway to a small mausoleum.

A thick chain and padlock ensured the deceased beyond rested in peace.

Great. Helpful apparently translated into heavy lifting and lock-picking—nice to be useful.

“Hold onto these.” I shoved the broken boots at Gil, and she made them vanish. Then I reached for my pockets only to remember I was wearing a tight black dress, not my familiar gray duster. “Uh, Gil,” I said, flashing my empty hands. “No lock picks.”

Her dark brows merged into one across her forehead.

“Can’t you snap the chain or something?”

I gave the chain, the links as thick as my wrist, a doubtful glance. Oh yeah, I could just flick that apart. No problem.

Riiight.

“Well, if not the chain, maybe the padlock?” she asked.

I lifted the darkened lock and a whisper of magic ran up my fingers. What the—? I jerked back. “You tried to magic this open already?”

Gil’s gaze dropped to her plastic rain boots as she nodded.

Great. I glanced over the lock. Even if I’d had my picks, Gil’s botched spell had melted part of the locking mechanism.

Unfortunately, the spell hadn’t damaged the lock’s integrity, and my attempt to jerk the lock open accomplished nothing.

I dropped the lock. “There’s no way in. Take me back to Death’s Angel.”

“There has to be a way.” Gil tugged at her sleeves. “I’ve already set off the magical tripwires. We have to get in tonight. Can you break down the gate?”

I blinked at her. “Uh, no.”

She just frowned at me, and I sighed, glancing at the mausoleum entrance. It was old, the stone façade weathered and blackened, the iron gate red with rust. Old hinges too—real old, pin-type hinges. Maybe I can…?

I grabbed the gate, and, bracing with my knees, lifted upward. Rust whispered like dry husks rubbing together, red flakes showering the stone steps, but the hinges lifted. I twisted, setting the heavy gate down crooked. It was still connected to the one side of the mausoleum by the chain, but the opening on the hinged side of the gate left plenty of room for Gil and me to squeeze inside.

“Excellent.” Gil clapped her hands as she slid past me. She really shouldn’t have looked so excited about breaking into a tomb. I probably should have asked her to explain, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. No, sir, Judge, sir. I have no idea why she brought me here.

Inside, a stained glass window depicting an angel dominated the wall opposite the door. In the thin moonlight streaming in, she looked over the pairs of sarcophagi lining the side walls. Gil summoned a small purple light to her palm.

It twinkled softly, floating to her shoulder, creating quivering shadows around the tomb.

She walked to the closest sarcophagus, the little globe of light following her. “This should be it. Open it up.”