Venom joined her just as she stepped into the humid semi-darkness inside the building, full of old air breathed out by countless people who had nowhere else to go . . . or who preferred to live in the shadows. The only light was provided by the miraculously whole streetlamp outside—its yellowish glow coming in through the uncurtained windows—and by a standing lamp someone had plugged in.
The entire first floor was open plan; the stairs that led up to the second level hugged the left wall.
Bodies stirred on the floor at her entrance . . . before going preternaturally motionless. Holly knew she wasn’t the reason for their fear—most of these people had seen her around. Some were friendly, some not, but so far, she hadn’t had any trouble with them. Glancing back at Venom, she told him with her eyes to let her take the lead.
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants, the suit jacket he’d put on over the top of his shirt so perfectly cut and fitted that she knew it was bespoke—and created to hide his weapons. Looking at him, no one would guess he was armed with two short swords worn in a crisscross harness on his back. Holly had seen him move with those blades; “deadly” wasn’t a strong enough word.
“Don’t brush up against anything,” she muttered, “or that’ll be the end of your fancy suit.”
His sunglasses reflected back her own image.
Scowling at the barrier, she returned to her examination of the squathouse’s first level. About half the people within were curled up asleep under ragged blankets or piles of newspapers, while the rest sat hunched up against the walls, trying not to meet her gaze. Holly soon spotted the telltale signs of a fight—bruised faces, clothing torn and damaged worse than usual, scrapes of what looked like fresh blood on the floor.
The bad feeling in her gut intensifying, she did a careful round of the area while Venom stood by the doorway, his mere presence ensuring that no one dared move. “They’re not here,” she said to him. “We have to go up.”
She was about two footsteps away from the stairs when a hand closed over the top of her shoe. Heart jolting, she glanced down to see a dirty and round face bordered by curly brown hair. Brynn. Holly knew her, knew, too, that Arabella often used her meager store of money to buy food for this mortal who wasn’t quite right. Even Zeph, junkie though he was, would Dumpster dive behind restaurants to make sure Brynn didn’t starve.
Sensing Venom stir behind her, she shot him a quelling look, then crouched down. Brynn was nearly lying on the floor, only her head raised. “Where’s Zeph, Brynn?” Holly asked gently.
“He got hurt,” the distressed woman whispered. “Real bad. Arabella, too.” She waved Holly to the darkness under the stairs and to two unmoving lumps it took Holly at least a minute to make out, the murk was so deep there. “I can’t wake them up.”
Sitting up, Brynn twisted her stubby fingers together, her eyes wet. “I tried to give them my blood even though Zeph says I never have to, but they won’t drink, Holly.”
Swallowing hard, Holly focused on the bloody drag marks on the floor below her feet. “Did you move them?”
Brynn’s lower lip quivered. “To keep them safe until they woke up, but they aren’t waking up.”
Holly went to the deathly quiet bodies of her friends and peeled back the old brown blanket with which Brynn had covered them. “Oh, God.” Fury was a tempest in her blood.
Coming down beside her, Venom took in the damage. “The woman is alive despite the meat pulp someone made of her face. Him . . .” Pulling down the blanket, he shoved up Zeph’s dirty T-shirt. “Heart wasn’t gouged out, so there’s a chance.”
Holly knew most vampires would regenerate from a beating this brutal, but most vampires weren’t as weak as Zeph. “Can you give them your blood?” He wasn’t cruel, had fed Daisy when necessary.
“I could, but they’d be better off getting an infusion direct to the bloodstream.” He slid his arms under Zeph’s body, uncaring of the dirt and blood that had to be soaking into his suit jacket. “Can you and the mortal carry the woman?”
“Yes.” Arabella didn’t weigh much.
Brynn followed her instructions without deviation, and soon the two of them were carrying Arabella’s badly beaten body to the car—which had no backseat. But Venom had already managed to fit skinny Zeph in the spacious passenger side footwell, now placed Arabella atop him, part of her body on the seat itself. “It’s a short ride,” he said when Holly went to protest the manner of transport. “Once you’re in, you can cradle her against your body.”
Turning to Brynn, he gripped the woman’s chin in his hand, but Holly could tell the grip wasn’t hard. “What happened to your friends?”
Brynn’s huge eyes held no fear of Venom; in her artless mind, that he was with Holly and had helped Zeph and Arabella meant he was safe. “Was a big fight,” she said. “People screaming so loud.” She pressed her hands over her ears. “I just hid until after, but Zeph and Arabella got stuck in the middle.”
“Shit,” Holly muttered. “We’ll never find out who started it unless Zeph or Arabella know. Things just erupt sometimes.”
The skinny vampire gang yet lingering in the same spot as earlier had no answers for them, either. “Heard there was a big fight here, came to see,” the one with the squeaky voice said through a haze of cigarette smoke, his skin a pasty white and his nails sharpened to points. “But it was all over by then.” A shrug. “Just the bottom feeders losing their shit.”
Holly felt her hand curl into a fist, but she didn’t plant it in the ass’s smug face. “Brynn, will you be okay?” She didn’t know how long Zeph and Arabella had been watching out for the other woman, or how well Brynn could survive on her own.
“I lost my things in the fight,” the mortal woman whispered. “I only got my blanket.” Brynn still had possession of the latter because they’d carried Arabella out in a sling formed of the blanket.
To Holly’s surprise, Venom peeled off several large bills and held them out to the skinny gangbangers. Dressed in white wife-beater tanks and low-hanging cargo pants in camo green or black, those stupid kerchiefs on their heads, they looked like children playing at being grown-ups. Holly wouldn’t trust them with her imaginary dog, much less a flesh-and-blood mortal like Brynn. But Venom wasn’t done.
“Use this money to get Brynn the food and supplies she needs, and keep her safe until her friends return.” His voice was mild as he added, “You really don’t want to cheat her, attempt to feed from her, or otherwise harm her. She is now under my protection.”
Irrespective of the wildly differing hues of their skin, the vampires paled as a group.