5. Coriander and Carnage

Bizarre. That’s what this was. Surrounded by normality, he thought he might go mad. Photos of the restaurant owner with all his famous guests over the years lined the walls.

Massive, laminated menus in Chinese and English filled what little space remained. They clung to the walls like brittle moth wings, their laminated surfaces yellowed with age and grease.

Shades of red and white were everywhere he looked. A flood of Liora’s darkness veiled the room.

Her shadows whispered to and protected her, but they also seemed to consume and live. They moved serpentine and restless, coiling around chair legs like smoke from a pyre.

When the pork buns arrived, she devoured them with feral precision. Claws dimpling the white bread before she ripped them in half. Her eyes kept flicking to the love drunk couple, whispering sweet nothings to each other.

Ash watched, a half smile painted on his face. His boot tapped on the tiles in a pretence of nervousness. He doodled on a napkin with a pen he’d nabbed from another table, until she froze. A drop of chili oil slid down her scarred wrist.

“Problem?” he asked.

She dropped the half-eaten bun on her plate with a grimace, wiping her hands on her own napkin. She picked up her glass of ice-water.

The freezing liquid burned her throat. It was a welcome punishment for the heat pooling low in her belly, where the demon coiled and grumbled.

Condensation dripped as she sank half of it at once before responding.

“They used coriander,” she muttered, plump lips flattening into a white line. “I hate coriander.”

He blinked, mirth clear in his gravelled voice, as he said, “You’re five centuries old and still picky about herbs?”

She’d answered only one of his questions before their meal arrived—how old are you? He’d had an idea but it was good to know for sure.

“I didn’t survive witch pyres and revolutions to eat coriander,” She said.

Her tone suggested that she’d rather consume sewer water. Her shadows swirled, formless heads nodding in agreement.

Ash laughed. A genuine one, instead of the hollow snickers he’d used earlier, rusty and rough from disuse. Liora’s glare softened, just for a breath.

Dangerous, she thought. Men like him were always dangerous to creatures like her. But the hunters’ secrets in his possession might hold the map to her vengeance.

And this vampire—his blood had been vivid, a storm of grief, defiance, and rage. She had tasted his despair back in the alley. A sweet-and-salty bite that hovered around him even now.

“Finish your meal,” she said, leaning back as a waitress served her a bowl of steaming soup. “Then you’ll show me what you stole from them.”

He sat back, mirroring her, silver eyes glinting. “What if I want dessert first?”

It was as if he’d thumbed a raw nerve. She straightened, palms smacking flat on the tabletop. Her shadows lifted and slammed his chair down on the floor as she rose.

His head tilted back to meet her eye, he didn’t flinch. He’d seen worse than claws back in the hunters lab. The other couple gasped at the sudden surge of power, then forgot.

His gaze never wavered from Liora as they got up and paid their bill. Leaving in an unnatural hurry.

“You,” she said, whispering, leaning close, “are a bullet I’ve already pulled from the wound. Don’t make me regret not leaving you to rot.”

He grinned, unrepentant. “Too late, Liora. You’re curious now.”

Her hand burned to slap the smug smile off his lips. An arrogant vampire wasn’t a rare thing, but this one seemed different.

The fluorescents harshened his sharp cheekbones, thick stubble, and jaw. His nearly dying didn’t help the haggard look of his face. His silver eyes still appeared a little flat.

Handsome, she considered objectively, but the smirking, sarcastic quips, and posturing ruined it. Had he been like this while still human? A tendril of her darkness sniffed his collar.

She mentally scolded it until it creeped away, limp and shamed. Still, it lingered closer than she liked, a traitor to her resolve.

“Be very careful. It won’t last forever,” she said under her breath, sitting back down as he smoothed his serviette out.

Liora stared at the symbol doodled on the white paper. Recognition hit her hard, a hammer blow to her skull. Her stomach sank, the food she’d eaten sitting like lead, as the tiny image burned into her retinas.

It was his scribbled attempt to recreate the bullet’s engraving. Her breath caught, a sour taste thickened in the back of her mouth, as her clawless fingers flexed. The ink wavered, replaced for a heartbeat by memory.

The past, as it always did, dragged her down. She stood in a candlelit chamber in 1627, her hand guiding a young hunter’s quivering quill.

“The circle must never be broken,” she’d instructed. “Hunt only those who threaten the Shroud. Honor the Balance.”

Mortals and monsters had to live in equilibrium or the world itself would collapse. Everyone had known that then. All had agreed to her terms.

All had signed in blood and ash. For a century, it worked perfectly.

In this time, these hunters shot first and lit their cigars with the Accords nowadays. Fools. Heat flashed up her neck, teeth grinding, and her magic surged closer. Weakness, she knew, but the old fury never fully left her.

It was all a mistake. A mistake she would never repeat. She shook the ghosts out of her head and refocused on Ash’s crude drawing, eyes narrowing and full of scorn.

“They’ve bastardized it,” she said, reaching across the table and shredding the napkin, sick of the sight of the blasted image already.

He leaned forward, eyes locked on hers, and scars pulsing gold under his shirt. “Bastardized what?”

“Your table manners.” She deflected and flicked a dumpling at his head.

A childish impulse, but he didn’t even blink. He let it hit him. It bounced off his brow and landed on the floor with a soft thump.

She looks like someone kicked her puppy, Ash thought as he watched her. She wanted him to leave it alone. Shame. He’d never been very good at that.

“Why do you care if the hunters go feral? I thought you’d cheer them on.”

A single claw slid free, and she sharpened it with a file from her jacket pocket right there on the table as she said, “I prefer my enemies competent. These children wouldn’t know the Old Laws if I etched them into their gravestones.”

He pressed it further, needing a lot more before he could even begin putting the pieces together.

“But why? Why do you care? You’ve lived this long, why risk attracting their attention?”

She had gone still, barely breathing, and avoiding his gaze as she stared at some point over his shoulder. He didn’t think she’d respond. He fought the urge to grind his teeth.

Two minutes ticked by before she spoke again. And the corners of his mouth twitched at her obvious redirection.

“You have them worried. You must’ve seen something that made them resurrect that,” she said, voice a low growl as she jabbed her clawed index finger toward the scar the bullet had left behind. “I want to burn whatever scared them. Call it nostalgia.”

Lies, all of it. He doubted she realized she lied as much as she did. He didn’t bother pushing for more. It would benefit him if she thought him gullible.

He was certain he’d find a way to get under her skin. Freedom, it was all for freedom. Her haughty expression never faltered. Women.

Even demonic ones were nearly impossible to read or comprehend. For now, at least. He just hadn’t found the right script yet. He gave up on stealing secrets from her for the sake of finishing his food.

Ash speared a shrimp dumpling with his fork, too hungry to use chopsticks as he said, “So, what’s the plan? Will you teach me to brood in dark corners? Maybe hiss at holy water and silver crucifixes? Or is all that beneath you?”

Liora didn’t look up from her steaming bowl of egg drop soup, hand steady as she stirred it with her white spoon. She wasted no movement.

Everything she did was fluid, practiced. Her magic hummed, and the hair on his nape stood on ends. He sat straighter, awareness in overdrive.

He catalogued everything. Her shadows clung to the walls, the windows, some kept tickling him. Sneaking around his ankle until Liora noticed and yanked them away. Interesting.

Ash analysed every flutter. The way they shivered when he said her name, how they lingered near his scars when she was hellbent on ignoring him. They were weaknesses. Future leverage.

If she wanted to play savior, he’d play the damsel. As many times as it took. Her voice sent goosebumps scattering across his skin.

“The plan is to see if you’re worth the bullet it’ll take to kill you.” Her smile was all teeth when she looked at him. “So far, I’m not impressed.”

He arched a cool brow, gaze flicking to her throat and back to her eyes. He had an abrupt hankering for a cigarette.

A rush of nicotine to take the edge off was more appealing than blood to him then. His grin spread wide, something in him rising to the challenge in her midnight gaze.

Her shadows began twitching on the walls. He tracked them as his fork shattered in his clenched hand. He frowned briefly, as a prickling chill rippled across his shoulder blades. Ash reshaped his expression before Liora noticed.

The bell above the door dinged as a trio of middle-aged men strode inside. He hurried to respond, keeping his voice light.

“Ouch. And here I thought you liked my...” his false grin faltered.

He took a deep breath. All his instincts awakened, brain cycling through dread memories, nostrils flaring as he huffed. Past confrontations sliding to the forefront of his mind.

They’d almost killed him twice. Tonight was the closest they’d come.

That damn bullet, he still felt its echo. And they’d stabbed him once. A rookie used the wrong weapon in a panic as Ash fought his way out of an ambush. Coldness sparkled in him.

It burned, as images and sensations flashed through him. Iron buried in his chest. Poisoned cuffs blistering his wrists and needles pricking every vein they could find. He scanned the room.

The exit was close. His overly sensitive nose filled with intangible ice as the men’s scents hit him, like a boot to his gut.

Incense, yew ash, sweat.

Hunters had arrived.

He should’ve known the place would be teeming with them. His actions likely caused this city, Duskhallow, to be infected with them.

They wouldn’t return to the Iron District until they’d dealt with him. Washington sucked. He’d never liked it, but now he wanted to burn it down.

Maybe they weren’t after him. Just out for dinner and banter with the murderous bros. Yeah, he’d never believed his own lies.

Now wasn’t the time to start. He listened, hearing sensitive even to the slight whisper of clothing as they breathed.

“...to go. If you can have it ready fast, we’d appreciate it.”

They weren’t the same hunters he’d escaped from. His tormentors preferred suits, matching tactical gear, or lab coats.

The men at the counter wore stained, faded, and tattered khaki clothing. He pulled his eyes away before any of them noticed his attention was on them. A tremor ran through his muscles.

He swallowed thickly, calculating how fast he would have to be to make it out of the restaurant alive. Liora lounged, casual as a Saturday afternoon.

Her eyes on him, amused and dark as the abyss waiting for him once his luck ran out.

One hunter laughed at a joke the young receptionist told him before she left through the beaded curtain that led to the kitchen. The sound was overly loud, and forced.

It grated on Ash’s nerves. Made his molars itch. The man’s teeth gleamed under the buzzing lights, all silver caps.

A shiv in a smile.

All of them, weathered and grizzled. Faces scarred by teeth, blades, and claws. Jackets and combats weighted down with concealed weapons.

Ash squeezed his fist around the metal shards in his hand. He pocketed the steel fragments, their edges biting his palm and centering him.

If things went well, he wanted a trophy. If they went to Hell... he had to get a grip before he gave himself away.

Her scent washed over him—saffron, pomegranate, saffron, and that charred sweetness. He wanted to bury his face in her throat. Or run.

Both, maybe. He willed his body to remain loose and his countenance careless, cursing himself. Peripheral vision locked on the hunters as they waited for their meal. Liora watched him too closely.

Her spoon stilled halfway to her mouth, hovering in midair, shadows pooling thicker under their table in the corner. Composed and aloof on the surface.

Inside, she spiraled into her power, hungry as she was, it took more effort than normal. She swiped invisible handfuls of stolen and gifted magic from the well within her.

Ashton was like a beaten dog awaiting his master yelling at him. The hunters were just mortals with rudimentary weapons.

Why he was so scared of them, she hadn’t fathomed it out yet. She couldn’t catch his scent, either. It was hidden behind the potent perfume of her blood, and venom.

All she smelled from him was the acrid tang of his dread and the lingering rot the bullet fragranced his skin with. She ignored the glacial chill spreading through her fingers and up her forearms, the veins sparking with gilded light.

She needed to feed before the night was done.

“Calm down, leech. Eat your precious dumplings. Let the adults handle the dirty work.”

The air thrummed with a tension she felt like a cat rubbing against her legs. Ashton had gone preternaturally still. After taking a breath, he groaned, and she sighed.

How had he survived this long when he was so damn obvious?

She rolled her eyes and drank another mouthful of freezing water. Her succubus was already whispering.

If you do this, you’ll have to feed afterwards. No more excuses.

The demon’s voice was smug and seductive after weeks of Liora throttling her.

We’ve never sampled a vampire’s pleasure... I wonder what he tastes like.

Liora silently said, death. He’ll taste like death. Useless and disappointing.

She pushed it all aside and focused on the present as Ashton drummed his fingers on his knees and spied on the three older men.

One glanced over at them, his pale, winter blue eyes widening as they landed on Liora. Did they know her? Or had they just sensed her otherworldly presence, her shadow tendrils sniffing them?

The hunter turned to his companions, whispering. Liora sipped her soup.

“This is fine. Needs more salt,” she said, winking at him.

Ash didn’t know what to make of it. She was much too relaxed for his liking.

He thought she might watch him get butchered as payback for needling her. His senses still urged him to flee the fresh death the men had created for him.

The atmosphere strained, a garrotte pulling too tight. They must’ve drawn straws.

“Don’t let him get away this time. Ignore the demon. The Shroud takes its architects last,” one said, staring at Ash.

Strength and bitter adrenaline flooded his system. He just couldn’t catch a fucking break.

His jaw clenched. The first hunter, the smallest of the three, lunged toward him.

Cursed iron blade singing.

Liora flicked her wrist, a shadow ribboned away, noosing his neck and snapping it in an instant. Killing him mid-stride.

The man dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. She hadn’t looked away from Ash.

He gaped, eyes widening, and head shaking as he stared at her.

Did she help because of her curiosity about his intel, or did she want to show off? Or was there a deeper explanation for her contradictions?

He should test it. Test how far she’d go for him.

“Shit,” he hissed.

He scrambled back, an exaggerated shake in his hands. He gasped theatrically as another hunter roared and swung a loose chain at him.

The hunters’ iron leash whistled through the air. It’s worthless bone charms clattering. It was a priest’s rosary turned profane.

Liora’s laugh curdled as she rose to her feet. “Oh, darling, you brought a craft fair to a massacre.”

They had. This definitely wasn’t the faction he’d torn his way through.

The horrors his captors inflicted on him were much more brutal, far more effective than this lot. Liora moved, her copper hair crackling like downed power-lines after a hurricane. Haloed in the fluorescent gloom.

He couldn’t smother the rush of want that trickled down his spine as she moved, forgetting the danger for a second as he watched her.

She moved effortlessly, not even trying, dancing to the clamour of swinging knives and pattering blood. Her shimmering loose-curls streaming behind her, like a banner of war.

She dissolved into shadow, reappearing and disappearing to confuse the two lumbering men.

Here, then there, evading every knife, fist, and whip they employed. There was a nasty, wet crunching sound. Her lightning wreathed talons shredded through bone and tendons and a scream died wetly as a head tumbled to the floor.

It rolled to a stop at Ash’s feet. Ozone, metallic and fizzy, filled the iron rich air as Liora licked her claws clean. The hunter’s death mask frozen in agonized shock as it gazed up at him.

He kicked it away, enjoying the crunch as his steel-toed boots crushed the bone. He had no time to think as the last man flung himself at him.

Ash’s stumble was almost graceful, a mere half step slower than his reflexes allowed. He braced for the agony he could have avoided. The hunter’s blade grazed his ribs.

He let Liora see his ‘fear’ as the yew-ashen steel seared through his flesh. It was only a graze, but it was more than enough.

He swallowed a shout. Pain roasting his side. He blinked, and she’d moved closer.

He stumbled again, for real this time. His performance had ended the second the poison infected him. Vision blurring, throat burning, and veins blackening as the last hunter loomed.

Holy grenade primed. He tossed it at them.

It rolled toward them like a scooped out eyeball in slow motion. It’s sanctified fuse hissing condemnation. Ash waited for the Silverthorn’s it would spray, the deadly agony that would follow.

Liora gave it a look of boredom. She crushed it with a stomp of her heeled boot before Ash’s flinch had even finished.

Silence vibrated for a nanosecond.

The hunter gaped. His mouth opened to say something. Ash never found out what.

Liora’s shadow speared through his throat with a squelch that made his leaden stomach flip. Blood rained. Splattering the walls, tables, and ceiling with gore.

Quiet fell. Tension still strummed around them. Ash coughed scarlet tinged ash onto the tiles, just loud enough for her to hear.

She paid the carnage no heed, turning to him with an exasperated expression. She caught him as he staggered, lowering him to the bloody floor.

Her shadows enveloped him even as she cursed at him, holding him.

“You’re a fucking masterpiece.” She sneered. Her claws pricked his jaw, cold as a grave kiss, but the shadow caressing his cheek was gentle. “Of incompetence. It’s truly awe-inspiring.”

“Masterpiece, hmm?” His smirk bled defiance, but his fingers trembled just so against her sleeve. “Careful. You’re beginning to sound invested.”

Her talons were ice but the shadow still lingering on his cheek... warmth where there shouldn’t be. It was as if it forgot it wasn’t supposed to care. Or maybe she told it not to and it ignored her.

Maybe that was the source of her rage. She scowled at him. No mercy to be found as the pain radiated through his bones.

He grit his teeth. Body bowing off the floor as he held his breath, unable to tame his reaction.

“You’re a disaster magnet. My interest is solely in seeing how deep it runs,” she said in a mocking undertone.

He had no quips to respond with as her chilly hands tore at his shirt. He risked a peek at the wound.

Instantly wishing he hadn’t. Liora snarled, head shaking. The blade had only grazed him.

His flesh bubbled black, the darkness threading out from it, creeping toward his dead heart. Yew ash poisoning.

Liora swore and muttered in another language beside him.

Russian, he thought. Shame it wasn’t Dutch. Her hands grew colder by the second.

What had it cost her to use her magic while her hunger gnawed so roughly?

A quiet flutter beneath her ribs answered. Her heartbeat, wild as a butterfly trapped in an urn, frantic, sealed, and alive.

The silly thought disintegrated as the agony swelled and slammed into his body, knocking the wind from him. The lethal ash moved like an invisible worm inside him.

It writhed beneath his skin. The obsidian veins spidered like fractured cathedral glass over his side, spreading across his torso and around his back.

It moved faster than he thought it would. Shit. Perhaps he shouldn’t have played the damsel so well. She didn’t flinch as she slit her wrist again.

The slight quiver in her claws came back as she held it over his injury.

“Breathe,” she ordered coldly, her claws still nicked his skin.

A few drops of her black blood fell into his wound. It sizzled and hissed, rot and lightning battling. It smelled like her usual dark fruit and something older. Burnt temple incense.

Ash arched as it bled into his arteries, groaning as heat flared too hot within him. The agony rising to a fever pitch, a scorching sensation tearing through his innards. Sweat sheeting his skin.

How did that happen? Vampires don’t

—her scent thickened the air, fervent, mouthwatering, as it soaked into his pores.

He detected a heavier dose of burnt sugar seeping underneath the pomegranates. He wanted to know for sure that it meant what he thought it meant, but something else made itself known.

Her freshly drawn blood became impossible to ignore. It smelled the same as her scent, but her pulse sounded like a funeral dirge droning in his skull. Throat dry, raw as open wound, and aching to feed.

Hands itching to grab her, but he didn’t have the strength. Venom pooled in his mouth. Her hot thigh pressed against his hip, steadying him. Too close.

She was too close.

No, she wasn’t close enough. He closed his eyes as the pain surged and her blood beat it back. She went against all he’d learned about succubi. What part was she playing?

He knew what he was doing. Her actions made zero sense to him. Questions pelted his brain as he counted the slowing beats of her heart.

Gradually, the pain lessened. Bit by bit, his body relaxed, and he released a long exhale.

It receded to a dull throb in his chest, manageable. He knew it would return soon. The delayed rot still wove through him. He needed...

“Still alive, leech?” She murmured. Her hot breath feathered along his jaw. She’d slouched closer at some point.

He huffed a short laugh, ribs grinding, and stomach twisting, too hollow. He didn’t open his eyes as he said, “Disappointed?”

She made an animalistic sound. “Optimistic.”

He blinked his vision clear. She backed away, head shaking at him.

“You fight like a mortal. Pathetic. No elegance, just brute force. It’s sheer dumb luck you’ve survived this long.”

Her shadows hauled him to his feet, holding him up as he tested his legs. He hid a grin as they crept over his injury, recoiling at the black edges. The hunger in him was an irritant as her siren blood bloomed in his nose.

“I was human longer than I’ve been a vampire. They don’t exactly teach classes on this,” he said, swaying a little to test a theory.

Her shadows gripped him tighter as he sagged into them, performing even as his mind raced. Pathetic, she called him.

Perfect. Predator and prey. He would make the best of both. His smirk sharpened despite his quivering, sore muscles.

She dragged him toward the shattered door. He put up no resistance, keen to see what madness would soon transpire. She tossed a stack of rolled fifty-dollar bills on the counter. So much for him paying, then.

She stopped before they went outside.

“You’ll die in an hour without my blood. So here’s your choice—”

He jumped in, said, “Let me guess. Hell or hell adjacent?”

Her smile was dangerous. “Option one; You come with me. And I don’t let you die.” She invaded his personal space, a gelid claw tracing his throat. He wanted to lean into it, had to hold himself back. “Or I drain your stolen life-force here and save us both the hassle. Your choice.”

His ragged laugh made her smile broaden. White teeth gleaming. Wicked, shameless, so alluring he almost forgot what she was.

“Is that a threat or a date?” He said, not caring either way.

Her response was simple, chilling if he wasn’t already dead and dying. Chilling if he hadn’t hoped for it.

“Yes.”

Ash swayed again, legs weakening as the poison drove deeper. He halted his breathing to avoid hearing the rattling growing louder with each inhale.

“Fine. But if you try to chainsaw my head off, I’m leaving a bad Yelp review.”

Liora rolled her eyes, dragging him outside into the night. He watched the sway of her ass as she strutted ahead of him, mouth curling and fingertips tingling, dying to unravel her.

Find out what made her crumble, so he could leverage it. She wielded no tenderness or sympathy. Her shadows, though, cradled his weight with the gentleness of a mother holding her newborn.

And if he heard her pulse racing faster as his blood stained her sleeve? Well, monsters never confessed. He’d let her keep that secret.

For now.