Blood and Fire Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Gabriela Fišerová

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  Also by Gabriela Fišerová

  1

  “I don’t need a partner,” Arkemoz repeated through gritted teeth for what was at least the tenth time already. But his superior was apparently not having it. It made him want to pull at his horns.

  “Yes, you do,” came the ever less calm reply of Arthur Black, the chief of the local branch of Aegis. A vampire, of course. As far as Arkemoz knew, there was no one else working for this branch of Aegis other than vampires, not counting him. Though that wasn’t surprising. There were more vampires in the world than any other supernatural creatures, definitely because of how easy it was to make more of them, and this was a relatively small town.

  “We’ve already discussed this,” Black continued, folding his arms. Despite looking no older than thirty, he truly seemed like he was tired of living in that moment. Which was interesting, because he was dead. “I told you that if you can’t be friendlier to the people you work with, you’ll be paired up with someone who will do it for you. And you broke the nose of the last person who you were assigned to protect.”

  Arkemoz glowered at him. “He called me a hellspawn.”

  Black frowned in thought. “Well, I mean—”

  “Don’t say it.” Arkemoz really didn’t care if it technically was true. He’d done nothing to deserve being called names, even if he was a demon. No one went around calling vampires leeches just because they were vampires.

  “It doesn’t matter if you were morally justified, Arkemoz,” Black said, staring him right in the eye. “You can’t go around punching our clients. Especially paying ones.”

  Arkemoz sighed. He didn’t have anything to say to that. He wasn’t sure how that magic powder the reformed vampires here ate instead of blood worked, but it probably wasn’t cheap. And then there were salaries and who knew what else. Not that Arkemoz got a lot of money out of this, but that was all right. He didn’t have a lot of needs, after all.

  “Who is it?”

  Black blinked at him.

  “The person I am being forced to work with,” Arkemoz added. “Who is it?”

  “Oh. His name’s James Adley. He’s a relatively new addition to our team.”

  Hm. No doubt a vampire, too. Arkemoz wondered how old he was. The older ones seemed to always think they knew better, and frankly, it was irritating. Arkemoz might have been new to Earth, but he wasn’t young by any sense of the word. Maybe they just assumed he was because he looked like he was in his early twenties, but that was hardly his fault. Taking on different forms to blend in—in this case very nearly human—was more an instinct than an actual ability he had control over.

  “He’s already been assigned your next mission. He’ll give you the details when you meet him,” Black said. Arkemoz huffed quietly. How was it that someone who had apparently worked for Aegis for a shorter time than him was being briefed on missions instead? But he decided to keep that to himself.

  “And that would be where?” Arkemoz asked, already heading out of the chief’s well-lit office. They had special windows here that made sure the people inside would not burst into flames after opening the blinds, but the fact that vampires apparently enjoyed sunlight when they could was interesting to Arkemoz. Prior to coming here, he had thought vampires liked dark places.

  “He should be at his desk here.”

  Arkemoz nodded, his shoulders slumping. Well, if he had to go along with this, he might as well try to stay professional and go meet him immediately. He didn’t have anything else to do, anyway, except the new mission he knew nothing about.

  His orange eyes widened. Oh, so that was why Adley was told what their mission would be instead of Arkemoz. Now he had to go talk to the vampire to get some information, so he couldn’t just avoid him like he’d most likely do if he knew what they would be doing.

  If anything, he was more frustrated after figuring this out.

  “Just give him a chance, all right? It will be easier for all of us,” Black added as Arkemoz was leaving.

  “Sure,” Arkemoz grumbled, closing the office door behind him. He would have to give Adley a chance. He doubted he was going to get assigned a different partner if they didn’t get on, so then they’d be stuck together hating each other. He was pretty sure that most of the other people working for Aegis had either already been partnered up, or they were adamantly against that idea. Which was probably why Adley had been chosen for it, too, being new and all.

  “Heya!”

  Arkemoz flinched, stopping dead in his tracks as he only then noticed the much too tall, muscular man grinning at him. He had been lost in thought, but given how large this man was, Arkemoz wasn’t sure how that had been enough to miss him completely.

  “You must be my new partner,” the man continued. And he was now very obviously staring at Arkemoz’s horns. The demon scowled at him, forcing himself to resist the urge to try to hide them somehow. Not that he easily could without his hat—they were pretty big, even in this form. At least they curled around his head instead of sticking up.

  “I guess I am,” Arkemoz replied, taking all of Adley in. The vampire definitely didn’t look like any of the vague mental images his mind had conjured up when Adley had been mentioned. Though it was mostly the perfectly trimmed beard and neck-length dark wavy hair that somehow came across as messy on purpose. Arkemoz hadn’t even known vampires could grow beards.

  “James Adley.” The vampire stuck out his hand for a handshake, which Arkemoz decided to go for. He hadn’t gotten used to this custom yet, but it was apparently impolite to not reciprocate. “And what’s your name, beautiful?”

  Arkemoz stared at him with wide eyes for a moment. Was this a compliment, sarcasm, or was Adley just being condescending? The smile Adley was wearing didn’t seem to be malicious, though. “Uh, Arkemoz.”

  “Arkemoz,” Adley repeated. “Bit of a mouthful, but I’ll live.” He winked, making Arkemoz even more perplexed than he already had been. “I love the gauges, by the way. And the piercings. You definitely look the part.”

  Arkemoz didn’t think he’d ever felt this confused in his entire life. He’d expected them to either start arguing immediately, or to skip over anything remotely personal and just get to work, not…whatever this was.

  He noticed then that he’d been rubbing his ear where the small, black, solid gauge earring was and stopped immediately. He wasn’t sure what Adley was insinuating, but it didn’t mean anything. And neither did the couple of stud piercings above his left eyebrow. He’d just seen them when he’d first gotten here and thought they looked nice. He sort of wondered what would happen to it all if he changed into his real form, but since he didn’t have much control over his shapeshifting, he couldn’t try.

  “The black trench coat isn’t bad either,” Adley continued his assessment in the meantime. Clearly it was time to say something.

  “Just because I’m a demon you can’t assume—” He cut himself off with an aggravated sigh. “I don’t dress like this because I’m a demon. I just…like it.”

  The vampire was smirking at him now. “Well, don’t feel any
pressure to change anything, gorgeous. You rock it.”

  Arkemoz huffed, folding his arms. He was pretty sure he was blushing, but he was doing his damned best to pay no attention to that. He tried to find something worth mocking about Adley’s wardrobe, but he was wearing jeans, and what Arkemoz assumed was a band t-shirt of some kind. That wasn’t stereotypical for a vampire. What was he supposed to make fun of here?

  “Don’t have any tattoos, do you?”

  Arkemoz rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t.” Though now that that had been brought up, he couldn’t help but think about what tattoo he would get and where he’d want it if he decided to get one. “Can you please tell me what our mission is now?”

  “Oh, yeah. That.” Adley waved his hand, as if this was unimportant. “Come on, let’s talk shop somewhere else.”

  “Are the Aegis headquarters not a good place to discuss Aegis missions?” Arkemoz asked, feeling entirely lost. Was this his own fault or the vampire’s? He hadn’t had this problem with the other vampires he’d worked with before, but there hadn’t been that many.

  “I work better outside the professional setting. And the sun finally went down. I’ve been trapped here long enough.”

  Arkemoz just followed him with a frown, grabbing his fedora and sunglasses on the way out. It was a constant headache to remember to hide his less ‘normal’ features. Maybe he should at least get some colored contacts—he was pretty sure the chief had mentioned something about those at some point.

  “Great hat, very film noir,” Adley commented with a lopsided grin. Did this guy ever stop smiling?

  “I don’t know what that is.” Arkemoz was getting the feeling that he wasn’t going to understand a lot of what Adley was saying. But what he generally didn’t know were things related to human pop culture, so it wasn’t really important to understand it. He was here to do a job, help some people, not fill his head with pointless information.

  “What, a hat? It’s that thing you’re wearing on your head,” Adley replied, his grin somehow even wider now. Arkemoz shook his head. He wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. “Oh, come on, I’m just teasing.”

  “Where are we going?” Arkemoz said, disregarding the previous topic. They were outside, walking down the relatively busy street for how dark it was.

  Oh, right, he’d forgotten again. It was winter—the sun went down much earlier than during the summer. He would have to get used to that. Though he already knew he hated winter. It was cold, and wet, and there was snow everywhere. Disgusting.

  “It’s just around the corner here.” Adley pointed to said corner as he said this, without bothering to actually answer the question. Arkemoz pulled his coat tighter around himself, for once jealous of the vampires’ ability to to ignore things like temperature. Adley had put on a leather jacket before they’d left, but the demon suspected he’d only done that to look inconspicuous. Arkemoz was just very cold most of the time when he was outside. He should probably get another layer of clothing. Something to put under the shirt, maybe.

  Because he was cold, he wasn’t really paying attention to where they were going and just followed the vampire, not looking up until they were inside. And immediately he was annoyed with himself for going along with this without more questions. He didn’t like being around anyone all that much, and especially not intoxicated humans. Which a bar was bound to have.

  “Really?”

  “What?” Adley laughed. “You look like you could use a drink.”

  Arkemoz grimaced as he looked around himself. There weren’t many people around, which was, for lack of a better word, a blessing. But it also wasn’t surprising—it was way too early for alcohol for the general person. At least Arkemoz thought so because he had no idea what time it actually was. He wasn’t used to that either. Time didn’t mean anything in the hell dimensions, but here everyone was obsessed with it.

  “I don’t drink.”

  That was apparently finally something that shocked Adley for a change. “What? Really? But you’re a demon.”

  “So?” Arkemoz was already ready to get defensive again. There seemed to be a staggering amount of misconceptions about his kind, and he really didn’t like that. He understood why that was—demons hadn’t been frequenting Earth this past century much, and when they had, it was usually to bring chaos and destruction. That just explained the ignorance, though. It didn’t excuse it.

  “Well, aren’t addictions kinda your thing?” Adley asked as he walked to the bar counter, grinning at the blonde behind it and ordering something called a Bloody Mary. If this actually contained blood, Arkemoz wasn’t sure what he’d do, but he doubted it. Adley probably just thought it was funny.

  “Encouraging addiction, maybe,” Arkemoz replied, annoyed as he folded his arms. Adley turned back towards him with a red drink in his hand, nodding towards a table in the back and strolling towards it. Great, maybe they could actually get on with this mission of theirs now.

  “Have you done some encouraging in your time?” Adley wiggled his eyebrows at Arkemoz as he said this, sitting down, and the demon following suit, making sure he didn’t sit on his tail. He had to be very careful with it since his coat wouldn’t hide it as well while sitting. Arkemoz generally kept it wrapped around his leg when standing or walking, too.

  “No,” he replied, almost glumly. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that he wished he was like most of his fellow demons, but there was a sense of melancholy when he thought about his differences. It certainly would have made life easier.

  “Not even a little bit?”

  Arkemoz shook his head, readjusting his hat absently.

  “Huh.” Adley was now watching him pensively.

  “What?”

  The vampire shrugged, taking a sip of his cocktail. “Nothing. I just kinda assumed you were like me.”

  Arkemoz stared at him for a few seconds, trying to figure out what Adley had meant by that. Because there was a lot they didn’t have in common. In fact, Arkemoz would go as far as to say that they didn’t share anything aside from working for Aegis.

  “You know. A former bad guy who figured out the error of his ways and now tries to make up for it,” Adley explained.

  Oh. Arkemoz hadn’t thought of that at all. So they could add their thought processes to the list of things they didn’t have in common.

  “I never really did anything…bad,” Arkemoz replied, squinting as he tried to think back. “For the sake of doing something bad, I mean. It just…. I don’t know, it felt wrong.”

  Probably because he was wrong. But at least he wasn’t the only one like this. There had been plenty of demons before him who also didn’t get much joy out of ruining lives and fighting in endless wars, most of which had gone to Earth, just like he had.

  For some reason Adley was grinning at him again, though this time his gaze was noticeably softer. Arkemoz scowled.

  “We have a mission.”

  “Oh, right.” Adley chuckled, taking another sip. “And we’re in the process of working on it.”

  And just like that Arkemoz had apparently discovered a whole new level of confusion. Maybe this vampire just didn’t make any sense—that would explain everything. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, our lovely chief thinks that while you have good intentions, you need to get to know the people you save,” Adley explained, leaning forward and folding his arms on the table in front of him. “And I’m supposed to help you with that, as I’m a tad bit more social.”

  Arkemoz could only stare at him for a few seconds, shocked. “Oh.” That all made more sense, he supposed. Though he wasn’t sure what to do with this information. Black could have been more upfront about his intentions, at least.

  “Yeah, so, I thought we could start by getting to know each other a bit,” Adley continued, smiling warmly and winking. “In a casual, relaxing, social setting.”

  Relaxing to Adley, maybe. Arkemoz was definitely not relaxed. He couldn’t even take off his sunglasses wit
hout feeling paranoid someone would figure out he wasn’t human. He didn’t want to imagine how the people around here would take that.

  “You sure you don’t want anything?” Adley asked as he took a packet of his artificial blood dust and poured it into his drink. Arkemoz grimaced.

  “I don’t drink.”

  Adley snickered. “Well, it doesn’t have to be alcoholic.”

  “No, I mean I don’t drink. Or eat,” Arkemoz elaborated, staring off at a table in the opposite corner. A dark haired woman in a beige coat was sitting there, a drink in hand and definitely watching them. As far as he could tell, she was human, but if anything that just put him more on edge.

  “You can’t?” Adley seemed surprised. Great, they would just keep baffling each other, it seemed.

  “I can, but I don’t need to. So why would I?”

  Adley raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. For fun?”

  Arkemoz blinked. Oh right, he kept forgetting about that. Fun. That wasn’t really a big thing in Hell, but he was aware it was on Earth. Though figuring it out was a completely different matter, and Arkemoz had mostly just not bothered with it so far.

  His silence was apparently enough of a reply for Adley. “You don’t do much aside from arresting vamps, do ya?”

  Arkemoz looked down at the table, suddenly feeling a need to duck his head. He had no reason to feel embarrassed, but he did anyway. Avoiding shame was exactly why he’d left hell, he thought with annoyance. He cleared his throat, now angry with himself for allowing Adley to make him feel like this.

  “It saves lives—something we should be doing instead of having this conversation,” he grumbled, folding his arms and looking away. His eyes drifted back to the table in the corner. The woman was gone now. He hadn’t noticed her leaving at all.

  Adley was still smiling, but it looked a little pained. “Buddy, this is a small town. There aren’t that many fangers out here. I’m pretty sure you helped catch most of the dangerous ones over the last month. Just relax.”