Death at First Sight (Spero Heights Book 2) Read online

  “I’ve seen you in your dressing room as well,” she cooed.

  “Daisy,” Dr. Delph warned. He opened the drawer of his nightstand, retrieving a pair of boxer briefs along with a large crystal.

  Daisy caught sight of the crystal and yipped in surprise. Then she vanished, leaving a deafening silence in her stead. Dr. Delph raised an eyebrow and glanced around the room, making sure she hadn’t lingered behind for a peep show. Then he quickly stepped into his underwear and pulled them up under the towel. Just in case.

  He sat on the edge of his bed and dug a gray tee shirt and a pair of sleeping pants out of his nightstand next. He didn’t feel like sleeping, but he’d already done his patient rounds for the evening, and most of the staff had gone home for the night. Orpheus House was quiet.

  He paced his room a moment before heading back into his office to scour his bookcases. Perhaps there was some divining method he had overlooked. His duty to Spero Heights weighed heavily on him. Just like Graham’s quest for survivors and Selena’s vow to protect them.

  The little world they’d built was still new and fragile, and it felt as if it was all about to come tumbling down like a house of cards.

  Chapter Seven

  The air conditioner made a soft clicking noise, a sound Lia had come to recognize as its warmup routine. She quickly jumped up from the couch and switched it off, afraid the sound would alarm the squatter next door. She couldn’t risk scaring her off and losing her only chance to… what? She didn’t quite know.

  Her hands shook, and she wasn’t sure if it was from all the brazen possibilities running through her mind or a side effect from the new drugs. She tiptoed across the living room and pressed her cheek against the gritty wall.

  The girl coughed again, and then Lia heard a squeaky faucet turn on. She wondered how long she’d been squatting in the building. If maybe she’d been around during the fumigation. That cough didn’t sound good.

  A horrible thought came to her next. If Saunders discovered the girl, he’d kill her. He’d assume she knew about Lia, and that would seal her fate. Lia couldn’t let that happen. She lifted her hand to knock on the dividing wall, but stopped short when she noticed a sunken furnace grate in the living room floor. The cough came again, echoing through the ancient ductwork.

  Lia knelt down and pried her fingernails under the edges of the grate. It made a creaking sound as it pulled free from the floor. The faucet in the next room was still running, so Lia hoped the girl hadn’t noticed.

  The meager light from the kitchen didn’t stretch far into the ventilation duct, but it was enough for Lia to see scraps of paper and piles of dried rat shit. As she lowered herself into the narrow tunnel that ran beneath the sixth floor apartment, she prayed that the fumigation had done its job and no rats waited for her in the darkness.

  There was barely enough room for her to crawl on her stomach, but she didn’t have far to travel. Light spilled down from the grate in the next apartment. She moved slowly so she wouldn’t alert the girl, and then hesitated when she reached the grate.

  What the hell was she supposed to do? Pop up through the floor and introduce herself? She had an image of the girl kicking her head like a soccer ball. Whether out of fear or obliviousness wouldn’t change the ouch factor.

  Suddenly the grate flew open and Lia found herself at the wrong end of a knife. The girl was younger than she’d envisioned, with a ratty brown ponytail and a split lip. She wore a baggy flannel shirt that hung down to her knees.

  “What do you want?” she demanded.

  Lia lifted her hands slowly in surrender. “I’m locked in the apartment next door,” she said, hoping it would put the girl at ease, but she didn’t look convinced.

  “No one but me has lived in this building for near a week now.”

  “I was just brought here today,” Lia said.

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. “This is my place. Go find your own.”

  “I can’t. I’m locked in,” Lia repeated. “Look, I can prove it.” She rose up out of the vent and the girl took a step back, still training the knife on her. Lia climbed out onto the carpet and pointed at her ankle monitor. “The bastard put this on me.”

  The girl’s eyes went wide. “That’s fucked up. Who is this guy?”

  Lia grimaced. “He just bought the building, and if he finds you here, he’ll kill you.”

  “You threatening me?” She stepped in closer with her knife and Lia’s hands went up again.

  “It’s fair warning. I don’t want anything to happen to anyone because of me.”

  The girl snorted and let the knife drop to her side. “Let him try me. I can take care of myself.”

  Lia shrugged and glanced around the apartment. It was identical to her own, only lacking a refrigerator, television, and sofa. A black garbage bag crammed with clothes was spilled out on its side in the middle of the room. The girl caught her staring and frowned.

  “It was left on the mission steps for donation anyway. And I’ll take back what I don’t use. You can look through it when I’m done if you want,” she added, taking in Lia’s black hoodie covered in dust and rat droppings.

  “Thanks, but I really can’t. He’ll notice if I’m wearing something new, and then I’ll be in real trouble.”

  The girl snorted. “My door isn’t locked. Why not make a run for it now?”

  Lia pulled her knees up in front of her and pointed down at the ankle monitor.

  “Right.” The girl stepped into the kitchen and glanced down at a pot on the stove.

  Lia didn’t get up from the floor. She was afraid any sudden movements might encourage the girl to start waving her knife around again, which wasn’t how she wanted to remember her first conversation with someone other than Saunders. “I’m Lia. What’s your name?”

  “Mandy.” She turned the stove burner off and pulled a small bag out of her pocket, along with a spoon and a syringe.

  “What are you doing?” Lia whispered, her brows scrunching together as she watched.

  Mandy gave her a sarcastic look. “Baking a cake.”

  “That shit will kill you.” Lia knew she wasn’t one to talk, being addicted to pain pills and all, but Mandy didn’t know that.

  “It ain’t done the trick yet, so I’ll take my chances.” She spooned up some water from the pot and added a pinch of heroin from the bag.

  Lia recalled the news piece on St. Louis again. “It killed over a hundred people from this county alone last year.”

  Mandy let out a frustrated sigh. “Thanks for the update, Lia, was it? Now feel free to mind your own fucking business.” She mixed her concoction on the spoon and then carefully set it down on the lip of the sink so she could suck it up into the needle. Then she rolled up one sleeve of her flannel shirt.

  Lia turned her head away before the girl injected herself, not thinking she could stomach the sight. When Mandy finished, she dropped onto the floor beside Lia and leaned against the wall. Her eyes glazed over and a small smile touched one side of her mouth.

  “I could get that thing off for you, if you want,” Mandy said, lazily looking down at Lia’s ankle monitor. Her eyes roved over to the small square of window above the air conditioner in the apartment, where a bright full moon peeked in on them.

  Lia swallowed and rested her head on the wall next to Mandy’s. “He’ll come if you do that. Then we’ll both be dead.”

  Mandy chuckled. She pulled her legs up to mirror Lia’s, stretching her arms out over bruised knees. Her delicate wrists seemed to warp in the moonlight. Lia blinked to clear her eyes, but the girl’s bones kept shifting beneath her skin, her fingers shrinking and nails elongating.

  “There’s a place I’m heading,” she whispered, excitement lacing her words. “It’s for people like me. People who don’t really belong here.” Lia thought she might be talking about hell at first, until she went on. “Spero Heights. A friend of mine lives there. Works at a club called the Crimson Moon. Doesn’t that sound fancy?”

>   Lia was still looking at the girl’s hands. The knuckles looked hairier. She needed to have a talk with Saunders about these new drugs.

  “They might even let you in—though I hear you have to be special if you wanna stick around for long. They don’t care much for humans.”

  “Humans?” Lia echoed. She looked back to Mandy’s face. The girl’s eyes had an amber sheen to them in the moonlight.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “Humans are the worst.” Her mouth and nose began to extend. Then she crawled onto her hands and knees, stretching like a cat.

  Lia thought she might be sick. The room blurred in and out of focus as she crawled backward to get away from Mandy.

  “Don’t move.” Mandy’s voice took on a gravelly edge. It froze Lia in place, at least long enough for her to watch as the girl’s flannel ripped down the back. A wolf rose in her place, all dark fur and amber eyes. It took a step toward Lia and she screamed.

  The beast’s paw swiped at her leg. Lia flinched, but when she looked down she realized that it had missed her. The ankle monitor wasn’t so lucky. It lay mangled on the floor.

  Lia’s heart hammered double-time. She was trapped in a room with a ravenous beast—or a girl, depending on how much credit she wanted to give the drugs—and now Saunders would be there any minute. She didn’t know what to do, until the wolf barked in her face and her back hit the front door.

  She fumbled as she reached up for the doorknob. When her hand closed around it, she jerked the door open and fell into the hallway. She crawled backward, and then quickly reached in to grab the edge of the door and slammed it shut. The wolf whined on the other side, its claws scuffing playfully at the cheap wood.

  Lia sat there a moment longer, her breath filling her lungs with fire. She looked up and down the hallway, unsure of what to do next. She couldn’t get back into her apartment, and even if she could have, there was now a wolf next door that could easily fit through the ventilation duct she’d managed to find.

  An elevator at the far end of the hall captured her attention, and she knew if she sat there long enough, it would deliver Saunders. She didn’t want to think about what he’d do with her then.

  There was a door at the other end of the hallway. A sign above it read Stairs. Lia looked back down at her ankle. The monitor was gone. And St. Louis was a big city. Saunders would have one hell of a time finding her in a place like that, at night no less.

  The numbers above the elevator lit up, displaying that someone was on the move. Two… Three… Four…

  Lia stood and ran for the stairs. She pushed through the door and stumbled down to the first landing. She caught herself on the railing, almost busting her chin, but she kept going, whipping around each corner. She was dizzy and breathless by the time she reached the main floor.

  Saunders was probably cussing up a storm by now and naming a bullet after her. She gulped down several breaths of air before slipping out a side exit into an alley.

  A light rain sprinkled around her. The air smelled like diesel and garbage, but there was a wet, fresh scent overlaying it. She didn’t savor it for long. A cruiser was parked at one end of the alley. She could see the red letters across the back of the white trunk. She turned away from it and ran in the opposite direction, her bare feet slipping across the slick blacktop.

  The alley spat her out in front of a gas station. The harsh lights induced a headache, and a horn blasted as she accidentally stepped out in front of a moving car. She shielded her eyes with one arm and looked around, trying to get her bearings. A man cut across the parking lot, heading for a semi. Lia ran to catch up to him.

  “Sir! Sir,” she called, trying to hide the desperation in her voice. “Could I catch a ride with you? Just for a short while.” She glanced over her shoulder, back toward the alley, and then gave him a pleading look.

  The man frowned as he took in her dirty hoodie and bare feet, but his eyes softened when they fell on her face. He gave her a slow nod. “Get in,” he said, nodding at the passenger door of his truck.

  “Thank God.” Lia heaved a sigh of relief and climbed inside.

  As they pulled out of the gas station, she shot a cautious look down the alley. The cruiser still waited at the other end. Part of her hoped that Saunders had discovered the wolf and gotten what he deserved. Another part worried that maybe the wolf had just been a hallucination.

  If that was the case, Mandy was possibly dead now, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her heart ached with guilt, but it was soon overridden by self-preservation.

  “Where you headed?” the trucker asked as they merged into traffic.

  A sign ahead pointed them toward Interstate 44.

  Lia pressed her cheek against the window, letting the cool glass sooth her flushed skin. “You ever heard of a place called Spero Heights?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s near Springfield. My wife likes to go up there every year for the Cheese Festival.” He stole a quick glance at her. “My route takes me right past it. We’re about three hours out.”

  Chapter Eight

  A pile of open journals crowded Dr. Delph’s desk. Most of them were wrapped in cracked, leather covers, and written in ink so faded that he had to use a special light and magnifying glass to decipher their delicate script. He hadn’t been this desperate in some time, but the fruits of his labor were less than rewarding.

  He’d reread the cryptic interpretations of the Seven Sages and all 147 Delphic maxims. Then he poured over every Pythia and priest of Apollo journal in his collection. The scarce answers he’d managed to discern were not comforting.

  So far, the only reason he had found for an oracle to lose their foresight was if the future involved either their imminent death… or a new love interest. He scoffed at the notion of love.

  Aside from Daisy’s unwelcome advances, there hadn’t been an interested woman in his life for at least fifteen years. Not a living or well-adjusted woman anyway. Love was not on many of his patients’ minds, and his clinical bedside manner prevented him from seeing them in a romantic light. They were there for his help, not his affection.

  Other things he’d stumbled upon suggested that his foresight might be stunted because he’d strayed too far from the Fate’s chosen path for him. He had been ordered to procreate. The line of Phemonoe had to carry on, and he wasn’t getting any younger.

  Could it be possible that the Fates were sending him a companion? Was that why he’d stopped gleaning the future? If so, he thought, their timing was shit. His reflection in the office window looked tired, his gray hair sticking out from the knot he’d tied it in before his sauna meditations. How on earth was he expected to attract a mate in these conditions? Death certainly seemed the more likely option.

  It was past four in the morning, but he was still nowhere near sleep. His head spun with so many possibilities, a terrible whirlwind of self-projected outcomes, each one more disquieting than the last.

  He took a sharp breath and blinked stiffly, breaking eye contact with his reflection as he closed an open book. He would go for a run, he decided. A run brought everything into perspective. Plus, if he had to start courting women, he needed to stay in shape. Maybe the Fates would speak to him then. He would check later in his morning tea leaves.

  He stepped back through the bookcase entrance into his room and changed into a pair of gym shorts and sneakers. Then he untied his hair and brushed it out before tying it back again. The reflection in the mirror above his dresser didn’t look much better, but he knew that wouldn’t be happening until he managed a full night of sleep.

  It was still dark outside when he slipped out the side exit of Orpheus House. He stretched his arms across his chest as he made his way around to the front parking lot where there was more lighting. Once there, he paused to touch his toes and do a few lunges. Then he took off at a jog toward Caveat Road.

  Spero Heights wasn’t a large town by any stretch of the imagination. But it was more than enough for their little trio of a co
uncil to run. He’d been full of hopeful naivety when the project was first born. Pictures of crystalline utopias had danced through his head like sugarplums, and he imagined it had been the same for Graham and Selena. It took very little time for reality to sink in and ground them.

  Spero Heights was a success. He could say that much. It just didn’t come as clean or as easy as the fairytale they’d dreamed up. They were helping people. Though not everyone who came to them for help. And they were holding the place together financially and legally. As long as no one looked too closely, Spero Heights was just another tiny town not worthy of a dot on the map. And they intended to keep it that way.

  On the outside, the town wasn’t so incredibly unique, though for anyone who stayed more than a few days, the oddities began to raise questions. Most of all, it was the Midnight District they had to worry about.

  The town was amicably split for convenience sake. The four blocks that sat just north of town square catered to the vampires and nocturnal crowd, and was appropriately named the Midnight District. The vampires got along well enough with everyone else—there was a strict non-violence policy that granted all residents protection from each other, and warned them against inflicting violence on the human visitors that arrived in droves one weekend a year.

  The peace had to be vigilantly maintained if they wanted to protect the community, and that was why Dr. Delph had been commissioned to weed out troublemakers and outsiders before they became a problem. So far, he’d done a pretty good job. But if the Fates didn’t cut him some slack soon, he wouldn’t be able to vouch for anyone. Selena would just hate that, he thought with a dry grin.

  Dr. Delph cut west around town square and caught sight of the Chase Clan as they crept back up through the woods and toward the Crimson Moon, the abandoned theater Zelda had turned into a pub. The wolves lifted their muzzles in the air at him, and Dr. Delph waved back. A caramel-colored wolf howled, Logan showing off for his pack, before it trotted through the back door of the bar.