Passion of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 5) by Bella Klaus (best motivational books txt) 📗

“Sorry about that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought you were someone else.”

“You murder people for knocking on the door?” I snapped.

“Do you have a permit for the use of bungee traps?” Captain Zella grabbed him around the neck and shoved him into his home.

I clapped a hand over my mouth. This was the complete opposite to how she had treated me the afternoon she had appeared outside the Notting Hill warehouse, but then I hadn’t tried to attack her.

The man stumbled back several steps, shouting out incoherent protests. Whoever lived next to him cracked open their door and slammed it shut, and the curtain obscuring the window next to that one twitched.

I glanced from side to side, feeling for subtle demon magic, but only found the cold power of two furious shadow mages. “Nut, Geb?” I whispered. “Are you alright?”

Neither of them answered, making my heart sink. I turned my back to the open doorway and stared down over the edge of the building and onto the cobbled street. The van looked tiny from the distance, and the roads like seeing the satellite view on Google Maps.

A surge of vertigo coated my insides with a bout of nausea that made my legs tremble, and I swayed on my feet. We had to be at least thirty floors up from ground level.

The female enforcer placed a hand on my arm. “Go inside and see if you can collect your sample. We’ll keep watch from out here.”

My chest tightened, forcing the air out of my lungs. I needed to find Nut and Geb but the thought of descending those stairs and climbing them again made my pulse accelerate. I turned back toward the open doorway, and could finally breathe.

“Thanks,” I croaked. “I’ll try to make it quick.”

Sending Nut and Geb a silent apology, I stepped over the threshold, and the stench of dirty socks and moldy food filled my nostrils. As with most dwellings in Striga, this rookery apartment was larger on the inside than on the outside. A bare lightbulb illuminated the finger-smeared walls of a thirty-by-twenty-five-foot apartment, covered in papers and clothes and food wrappers.

The only furniture was an old sofa that sloped to one side. Half its stuffing was missing, looking like someone had torn through the cover to take bites out of its stuffing. My gaze wandered across the room to a metallic sink that contained a draining board. A filthy washcloth hung over its edge and behind it a half-full bottle of milk. It was both a wash station and a kitchen.

As Captain Zella brutalized the man in the corner and ignored his cries for mercy, I continued around the apartment, looking for signs that Coral had ever lived here.

A dust-covered photo hung on the wall, depicting a teenaged boy with the same auburn hair as the sobbing man and a red-haired woman who looked like Coral, only with deep brown eyes. This had to be her mother, the Neutral who had earned a living as a surrogate.

Another picture hung below that of a much younger looking Coral, clad in her academy graduation uniform. Like mine, her gown was devoid of the white sash that most magic users received for reaching the required level of power to pass the exams with honors.

Coral had been beautiful when she was younger, with sparkling eyes, unlined skin, and a wide smile of full lips and even white teeth. She wasn’t even thirty, yet she now looked much older, thanks to the vampires who took advantage of her desire to make a decent living.

“Stop,” her brother said with a yelp. “If I had known it was a bunch of enforcers and a reaper, I would never have sprung the trap.”

I turned to meet the man’s stricken eyes. “Who were you expecting?”

Captain Zella released her grip around his neck, and slammed her elbow into his back, making him drop to his hands and knees into the pile of debris.

“Moneylenders,” he said through panting breaths. “Since my sister left, they haven’t stopped hounding me for money.”

“So you decided to shove them off a high building?” I snapped.

He sat back on his heels and sniffled. “My sister no longer pulls her weight around here, and I’m sick of paying them.”

An annoyed huff escaped my nostrils. Coral had left Logris about a year ago, and prior to that, she dwelled in the tunnels beneath the Supernatural Council building. This man wasn’t telling the truth, but whatever he was up to, it wasn’t related to Kresnik.

“Do you have anything of your sister’s?” I asked.

He stared up at me through his tears. “Coral?”

“A hairbrush, toothbrush, something like that,” I said.

“Of course.” He stumbled to his feet. “But it will cost you.”

Captain Zella snarled and yanked him by the back of his t-shirt. “Miss Mirrin’s life hangs in the balance, as does the fate of every individual who dwells in Logris.”

Coral’s brother flinched away from the captain. “Then you won’t mind paying extra.”

Captain Zella snarled, but the man stood tall, meeting my gaze with gleaming eyes. He wiped the back of his hand over his nose, seeming to wait for me to open negotiations.

My hands clenched into fists. There was something seedy about him that made my stomach churn, and I wasn’t talking about the state of his apartment. This man hadn’t asked if we knew his missing sister, nor had he demanded to know what we wanted to do with her hair and other things that would have contained her DNA.

I would bet anything that he had done nothing to stop a young Coral from walking into the blood salon, even though the two of them could have lived comfortably from what she could earn donating to a broker. Judging by the way he was rocking back and forth on his heels and rubbing his hands, he probably walked Coral to the salon himself.

“What do you say?” He folded his arms across his chest. “Are you going