Bloodbound Rivals

The blood bag split open against the brick wall, and I watched a hundred dollars of O-negative run down the mortar like it was nothing.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said.

Vivienne didn't even look at the mess. She was too busy examining her nails, those long, perfect things painted the color of dried cherries. "You flinched."

"I didn't flinch. You threw it at my head."

"If you hadn't flinched, it would've hit you. Problem solved." She finally lifted her gaze, and there it was, that smile she wore like a weapon. "You're slower than you used to be, Sera. Getting soft in your old age?"

I was two hundred and thirty-seven years old. Vivienne was two hundred and forty-one. She'd been holding those four years over my head since we were both human, since before the plague took us, since before we woke up in the same shallow grave with dirt in our mouths and hunger in our guts.

Some things never change.

I peeled my jacket off and tossed it onto a nearby crate. The warehouse smelled like rust and rat droppings and the faint, sweet rot of old blood. Our employer had set up shop here three nights ago, and he was late. Again.

"You're cleaning that up," I said.

"Am I?"

"It's your mess."

"It's your blood." Vivienne pushed off the wall she'd been leaning against and walked toward me. Slow. Deliberate. The heels of her boots clicked against the concrete like a metronome counting down to something. "You're the one who needs to feed. I was just trying to help."

"You threw a blood bag at my face."

"I tossed it. Gently."

"At my face."

She stopped a foot away. Close enough that I could smell her perfume, something floral and expensive that did nothing to mask the underlying scent of her. Old blood. Cold skin. The particular sweetness that clung to our kind like smoke.

"You're hungry," she said. "I can hear it."

I hated that she could. Hated the way her nostrils flared slightly when she said it, the way her pupils dilated just a fraction. We were both predators. We both knew what hunger looked like.

"I'm fine."

"You're lying." She tilted her head. "Your hands are shaking."

They weren't. But I looked down anyway, an instinct I couldn't quite kill, and she laughed. Low and soft and genuinely amused. That was the worst part. Vivienne didn't fake her cruelty. She enjoyed it. Savored it like a fine wine.

"God, you're easy," she said.

"I'm going to kill you one day."

"You've been saying that for two centuries." She reached up and brushed a strand of hair from my face. Her fingers were cold. They always were. "And yet here we are. Still together. Still fighting over the same scraps."

I caught her wrist before she could pull away. Squeezed hard enough to feel the bones shift under her skin. She didn't flinch. Didn't even blink. Just watched me with those dark eyes, waiting.

"One day," I said again.

"Promises, promises."

The warehouse door screeched open. We both turned, dropping the moment like it was hot. Our employer walked in with two guards flanking him, human by the smell of them, and a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

"Ladies," he said. "Sorry I'm late."

Vivienne smiled at him. That smile. The one that made men think they were special, right up until she tore their throats out. "We were just passing the time."

I wiped my bloody hand on my jeans and stepped forward. "You have the information?"

"Right to business. I like that." He gestured to one of his guards, who stepped forward with a manila envelope. "Everything you need. Names, addresses, the whole operation. The nest is bigger than we thought."

I took the envelope and tore it open. Vivienne moved to stand beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched. I didn't pull away. We'd learned a long time ago that we worked better together, even if we couldn't stand each other.

The photographs inside showed a compound. Chain-link fences. Guard towers. At least a dozen vampires, maybe more, all wearing the same symbol on their jackets. A serpent eating its own tail.

"They're organized," I said.

"They're growing." Our employer, a man named Reeves who ran a network of informants out of the city, pulled at his collar. "Three of my people have gone missing in the past month. All of them were last seen near this location."

Vivienne plucked a photograph from my hand. Studied it. "This is the old shipping yard. Down by the docks."

"You know it?"

"I know it." She exchanged a look with me. "We've been there before."

We had. Fifty years ago, when it was still operational. When we were still working together, before things went bad. Before Vivienne did what she did.

I shoved the photographs back into the envelope. "We'll handle it."

"Tonight?"

"Tonight."

Reeves nodded and signaled to his guards. They filed out, leaving us alone in the warehouse with the bloodstain on the wall and the tension that always simmered between us.

"You didn't tell him," Vivienne said.

"Tell him what?"

"That we know the place. That we've been there."

"What difference does it make?"

"It makes a difference." She turned to face me. "You're keeping secrets, Sera. I can always tell."

I shoved the envelope into my jacket pocket. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know you better than anyone." She stepped closer. "I know the way you breathe when you're lying. I know the way your jaw tightens when you're angry. I know the way you taste."

I grabbed her by the collar and slammed her against the wall. The brick cracked behind her. Dust rained down. She laughed, breathless and wild, and I felt her hands grip my hips, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away.

"Still sensitive about that night?" she asked.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

I wanted to. God, I wanted to. I wanted to press my mouth to hers and bite until she bled. I wanted to feel her gasp against my lips. I wanted to hate her and want her and destroy her all at once, the way I had for two hundred years.

Instead, I let go.

"We have a job to do," I said.

Vivienne stayed against the wall, watching me with those dark eyes. Her collar was torn. Her hair was a mess. She looked like she'd just been thoroughly kissed, and I hated that I noticed.

"Fine," she said. "But this isn't over."

"It's never over with you."

"That's what makes it fun."

She pushed off the wall and walked past me, close enough that her arm brushed mine. I caught her scent again. Blood and perfume and something underneath, something that had always been there, even when we were human. Something that smelled like home.

I hated that most of all.

The shipping yard was exactly how I remembered it. Rusted cranes. Abandoned containers. The smell of salt and decay. We moved through the shadows like we belonged there, because we did. We'd been creatures of the night for so long that daylight felt like a distant memory.

Vivienne walked beside me, silent for once. We'd been partners for decades before everything fell apart. Before she betrayed me. Before I swore I'd never trust her again.

And yet here we were.

"Two guards at the north entrance," she murmured.

"I see them."

"Want me to handle it?"

"I want you to stay behind me and not do anything stupid."

She smirked. "Where's the fun in that?"

I ignored her and focused on the guards. They were young, maybe a few decades turned. Sloppy. One of them was smoking a cigarette, the ember glowing in the dark like a beacon.

I moved before I could think. One second I was crouched behind a container, the next I was on top of them. My hand covered the first guard's mouth before he could scream. My teeth found his throat. The blood was hot and thick and wrong, but I drank anyway, because that's what we do. Because that's what I am.

The second guard went down a moment later. Vivienne stood over him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"You're welcome," she said.

"I had it under control."

"Sure you did."

We moved deeper into the compound. The air grew colder. The scent of blood grew stronger. And underneath it, something else. Something familiar.

I stopped.

"Sera?" Vivienne's voice was sharp. "What is it?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because I knew that smell. I knew it like I knew my own name.

It was the smell of our grave. The one we'd crawled out of two hundred years ago. The one where we'd been buried together, side by side, two women who'd hated each other even then.

"What the hell is this place?" I whispered.

Vivienne stepped up beside me. Her hand found mine in the dark. Squeezed.

"I don't know," she said. "But I think we're about to find out."