Poison Promise

5

While Benson studied Troy, I studied Benson.

Even among the underworld bosses, Beauregard Benson was someone everyone talked about in hushed whispers. Unlike some of the other crime lords and ladies, Benson didn’t bother with selling blood, running hookers, or bankrolling bookies. Drugs were his forte. Uppers, downers, pot, heroin, crack, meth, oxy. If it could get you higher than a kite, then Benson was the one you were paying for the ride up into the wild blue yonder—and the piranha that was waiting to chew you up and spit you out on the way down.

Benson finished his perusal of Troy before turning to Silvio. “Is this the one?” he asked in a high, nasal voice that perfectly matched his geeky wardrobe.

“Yes, sir,” Silvio replied in a soft, bland tone.

Benson nodded, then pointed at the two vampires standing with Troy, snapped his fingers, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Gentlemen, you may leave now.”

“Sorry, Troy,” one of the vamps muttered.

The two vamps skirted past Benson and Silvio and hurried out of the garage as fast as they could. Meanwhile, the six men who’d been in the Escalades closed ranks, forming a circle around Troy. And I realized exactly what this was: an execution.

Troy had come here to hurt Catalina, but he was the one who wouldn’t be leaving.

Troy frowned, not comprehending that he was a dead man standing. “Mr. Benson? What’s going on? Why are you here?”

Benson plucked his glasses off his nose. He held out a hand, and Silvio stepped forward and passed him a white silk handkerchief, which Benson used to clean the lenses.

“I’m here because apparently, you can’t handle having your own territory,” Benson said, focusing on his glasses. “Did you think that I wouldn’t find out what happened?”

“If this is about last night, I can explain—”

“Of course this is about last night,” he said, tucking the silk into his pocket before sliding his glasses back onto his nose and peering through the lenses at Troy. “You and your friends went to one of our Air healers to get patched up. Your friends were smart enough to contact Silvio immediately afterward and confess their incompetence. Yet you did not. Do you want to tell me why?”

“It was nothing,” Troy insisted. “Somebody got lucky and got the drop on me. I was going to take care of it. Tonight.”

“Hmm.” Benson cocked his head to the side, as though Troy were some curious specimen he was examining. “And yet here you are, all alone, in an empty garage. That doesn’t give me a great deal of confidence in you, Mr. Mannis.”

Troy’s eyes flicked from the face of one vampire to the next. For the first time, he seemed to realize that his boss and his entourage hadn’t dropped by for a polite chat. He swallowed and rubbed his hands on his jeans to wipe the nervous sweat off his palms.

“I can explain, Mr. Benson—”

“Explain what?” Benson cut him off again. “How someone threatened, embarrassed, and beat up you and two other members of my organization, the men I specifically gave to you to help with the new distribution at the college? What do you have to say about that?”

“I—I—I—” Troy sputtered, but he couldn’t get the words out.

They wouldn’t have saved him anyway.

“Don’t you know that your embarrassment is my embarrassment?” Benson said. “You know that I don’t tolerate mistakes or people hiding things from me. And I especially don’t like my employees talking about my business interests to outsiders.”

I frowned. It sounded like Troy had been blabbing. But about what? And to whom?

“But you’ve done all of those,” Benson continued, “with your worst offense being running your mouth when you should have known to keep it shut. And now I’m afraid that you have to suffer the consequences of your actions, all your actions, Mr. Mannis.”

Troy bolted.

He knew what was coming, and he wanted no part of it. Couldn’t blame him for that. But the two vampires at the front blocked his exit and pushed him back into the waiting arms of the four men behind him. Two grabbed Troy’s left arm, while the other two held tight to his right side, immobilizing him.

Beside me, Catalina let out a soft gasp, her right hand fisting in the fabric of my T-shirt sleeve, even as she clamped her left hand over her mouth to muffle the noise she’d made. Lucky for us, everyone was focused on Troy and his frantic attempts to buck, thrash, and kick free.

Everyone except Silvio.

The vamp frowned, his gray gaze scanning the garage before latching onto Catalina’s car. His frown deepened, his brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed. I tensed, wondering if Silvio might ask one of the men to make sure that the garage was empty and how many of the vamps I could cut down before they surrounded me. But after a few seconds, Silvio fixed his attention on Troy again.

By this point, Troy’s struggles had dwindled down to tremors that racked his body from head to toe. “Please, Mr. Benson,” he begged. “Please. I’ll do better. You know I can do better.”

“I’m afraid that it’s too late for apologies, pleas, and promises, Mr. Mannis,” Benson said, his voice calm, if still very nasal. “You are only as strong as you appear to be, and I can’t have any weak links in my organization. Especially not now, when I’m rolling out a new product.”

New product? I wondered if he meant the red pill Troy had given me at the college.

Benson snapped his fingers. Silvio reached into the Bentley and drew out a long white coat, the sort that a scientist might wear in a lab. Benson held out first one arm, then the other, and Silvio carefully helped his boss into the garment, smoothing the fabric down over his arms and back the way a valet might. Silvio even did up the buttons on the front, so that the white coat covered Benson’s clothes.

Troy shuddered, as if he knew what was coming next. So did the vamps holding on to him.

Benson smiled, his fangs glinting like pointed diamonds in his mouth, the sharp tips ready to cut through flesh and bone—Troy’s. He strolled toward his minion, his stride smooth and steady, and snapped his fingers again. At the command, the four vamps holding Troy let go and stepped back. If I was the kid, I would have been hightailing it out of here, but he didn’t move at all. Instead, he stood absolutely still, as if he was frozen in place by the Medusa gleam of Benson’s glasses.

I thought that Benson would grab Troy, snap his neck to the side, and bury his fangs in the kid’s throat, but to my surprise, Benson clapped a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, as if to let him know that there was no real harm done. Troy sagged in relief.

And that’s when Benson made his move.

His hand darted over and wrapped around Troy’s throat. Benson lifted the other man up as easily as he had snapped his fingers, then pivoted and slammed Troy down onto the ground, hard enough to crack the concrete. It was an impressive display of strength, even for a vampire.

Troy must have had some giant blood in his family tree to survive that kind of blow to the body, because all it seemed to do was daze him for a few seconds, before he started gasping, choking, and clawing at Benson’s hand around his throat.

Instead of tightening his grip, Benson actually let go of his dealer. He crouched over the terrified man and started stroking his hand down Troy’s cheek, as soft and easy as you please.

“There, there,” he cooed. “Don’t be frightened. It’ll only hurt for a minute.”

Benson’s crooning only made Troy panic more. He heaved and kicked and flailed, but it was as if all the strength had suddenly left his body, because he didn’t actually go anywhere, and his struggles were the weak, pitiful thrashes of a dying animal.

Silvio and the other vamps stood by, still and silent, in a ring around the two men. Everyone but Silvio averted his eyes.

A strange blue glow began to emanate from Benson’s hand, so pale at first that I thought it was just a trick of the fluorescent lights overhead. But the glow grew and grew, and Benson’s eyes took on the same eerie tint, magnified by his glasses.

But the strange thing was that the glow seemed to be moving from Troy and into Benson. Every time the vampire stroked his hand down Troy’s cheek, the blue light intensified, like Troy was some sort of human cigarette that Benson had taken a quick hit off of.

The normal thing, the expected outcome, the logical action, would be for Benson to plunge his fangs deep into Troy’s neck. All vamps needed blood to live, since all those frosty pints of O-negative contained essential vitamins they required, just like other folks needed solid food to maintain a healthy playing weight. And depending on whose blood they were swilling down, vamps could get more than minerals from it. Regular human blood was enough to give most vamps enhanced senses, along with extra speed and strength. But if they drank from giants, dwarves, or elementals, vamps could absorb the traits of those races—a giant’s strength, a dwarf’s durability, an elemental’s magic.

But Benson didn’t go for Troy’s throat. Didn’t bare his fangs. Didn’t seem at all interested in all of that sweet, sweet blood pumping through him. Instead, Benson kept stroking his hand down Troy’s cheek, as if it was enough for him just to smell the salty sweat streaming down Troy’s face; hear his small, weak, incoherent cries; and see the pain, panic, and fear twisting his whole body.

Maybe that was enough for Benson.

Maybe . . . maybe Benson wasn’t feasting on the drug dealer’s blood because he was dining on something else instead: Troy’s emotions.

Some vamps could do that, could tear all of the pain, fear, anger, and love out of a person as easily as they could rip open someone’s throat with their fangs. I’d never seen that sort of vampire in action before, though.

And I wished that I hadn’t now.

Even as the blue glow intensified on Benson’s hand, Troy seemed to deflate, like a cake that was caving in on itself. His beefy body grew thinner and thinner, his skin and cheekbones sinking in on themselves, as though he were the victim of some sort of sudden, extreme starvation. His dirty-blond hair fell out in clumps, and his breath came in a gasping, choking death rattle I knew all too well.

Even as Troy withered, Benson seemed to grow and grow, his chest expanding, his body lengthening, his arms and legs bulging until his white lab coat and pants barely contained them. One second, he was a thin, awkward, stringy puppet of a man. The next, he’d swelled up like a bodybuilder on steroids who looked like he would pop if he sneezed too hard. Troy’s emotions must be giving the vampire power, strength, and energy, the same way someone’s blood might. It looked like Benson had the odd bonus of getting actual, physical muscle mass from them too.

But the most disconcerting thing was that I could actually feel Benson pulling the pain, panic, and fear out of Troy, along with his life. Invisible sandpaper scraped at my skin, rubbing it raw. I could only imagine the excruciating pain Troy must be experiencing, being the focus of that sandpaper as it dug down deeper and deeper into him. But the sandpaper didn’t just wear down Troy. It also pulled out bits and pieces of his feelings along the way and then somehow transferred all his emotions, all his energy, all his life, into Benson, as though the vamp were a scarecrow being stuffed with straw.

Perhaps it was a by-product of the vamp’s ability, but fear blasted over me like heat from a sauna. Oh, yes. I could feel every single scrap of Troy’s hot, sweaty fear, like burrs desperately sticking to my own skin, before Benson pulled them away and swallowed them whole.

“No,” Catalina whispered. “He doesn’t deserve that. We have to save him.”

She started forward, but I clamped my hand over her mouth and dragged her back against me, making sure that we were both still hidden behind her car.

“It’s too late for him,” I muttered in her ear. “And us too if you don’t be still and keep quiet.”

Catalina struggled for a moment before slumping against me in defeat. She knew as well as I did that Troy was already dead.

Poor bastard. I almost felt sorry for him.

It took Benson less than two minutes to suck out all of Troy’s emotions. And when it was done, and Troy’s now bald, skeletal head lolled to the side in death, the vamp let out a long, loud, satisfied sigh, as though he’d just enjoyed the finest gourmet meal. I half-expected him to belch, but apparently, he was too dignified for that.

Benson got to his feet. His eyes burned an electric blue from Troy’s pain and fear, the orbs brighter than all the lights in the garage combined. He smiled at no one in particular, and the glow from his eyes painted his fangs the same disturbing shade. None of the other vamps dared to meet his gaze, except for Silvio, who stood by patiently, no emotion at all showing on his face.

“Well,” Benson crooned. “That was a nice snack. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.”

Even his voice was larger now, bolder, stronger, and more nasal than ever before. The sound reverberated through the garage, making Catalina shiver beside me and the concrete wail and whimper with the last dregs of Troy’s fear.

With Troy dead, I expected Benson to get into his car and leave, but instead, he reached inside his coat and pulled a small notepad out of his shirt pocket, along with a pen. The click of him snapping his thumb down on top of the pen boomed as loudly as a gong in the absolute quiet of the garage.

He crouched over Troy’s body, examining it from all angles, and started scribbling on his pad. I grimaced. Benson was actually taking notes about what he’d done to the drug dealer, as though it were an innocent science experiment, instead of a brutal execution. Not only did he take notes, but he actually pulled out his phone, snapped several photos, and then held the device up to his lips and started murmuring his observations into it. I wondered if he had some sort of sadistic memory book of all the people he’d killed. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Silvio remained still and quiet behind Benson, although the other vamps shifted on their feet, staring at the oil stains on the floor instead of at their boss. Nobody wanted to think that they might be in Troy’s position one day—dead, drained, and deconstructed.

“We’re done here,” Benson finally called out, getting to his feet and putting away his phone, pen, and pad.

Benson snapped his fingers, and one of the vamps hurried to open the rear door of the Bentley. The others got back into the Escalades, but Silvio walked over to Troy, bent down, and started rifling through his pockets, taking Troy’s wallet, phone, and the bags of pills he had stuffed in his jacket.

Oh, no. Couldn’t leave those behind when another one of Benson’s dealers could sell them.

Silvio started to rise, but his gaze caught on something glinting off to the left: Catalina’s keys.

She’d dropped them when I’d startled her earlier, and they lay about five feet away from her car, in the middle of the floor, right out in the open. I tilted my head and ground my teeth together to hold back a curse. I was still peering around the back of the car, and the faint motion caught his attention. His gray gaze locked with my wintry one. Even worse, he spotted Catalina too, since I was still holding on to her.

Silvio’s eyes widened, and his lips puckered. Another second, two tops, and he would open his mouth and yell at the other vamps to drag us out from behind the car. Then his boss would either feast on our emotions or give us to his men to play with. Neither option was pleasant to contemplate. Oh, I could kill some of the men but probably not all of them. Not before they got hold of Catalina, and especially not with Benson looking like some roid-rage wrestler spoiling for a fight. Our best chance of surviving this was to hotfoot it out of here as fast as we could.

“Something wrong, Silvio?” Benson called out to his second-in-command from the back of the Bentley.

“Get ready to run,” I muttered in Catalina’s ear.

Silvio stared at me for another heartbeat before dropping his hand down beside Troy’s body and then smoothly rising to his feet. “Of course not. Just making sure I got everything.”

He pivoted on his wing tip, strode back over to the car, and slid in behind the wheel, as if nothing had happened. But he’d seen us. I knew that he had. So why the hell wasn’t he screaming about our presence to Benson and the other vamps?

I thought it must be some sort of trick, some ruse to get me to lower my guard and lose any chance I had of sprinting deeper into the garage and getting Catalina to safety. But Silvio cranked the engine, turned the car around, and steered it down the ramp. The two SUVs followed him.

A minute later, we were alone, and the only sound in the garage was the dark muttering of the stone around us.