Devils Roses 05 - Death by Tara Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

backs up, like we are wild animals. I fake forward. They run.
    I look at the man and point. "I told you to run away."
    He struggles to get up and runs after the others.
    Ari nudges me, her eyes are still jet-black. "Dude, your Portuguese is good."
    I shrug. "All apart of the life I was going to have. You know. Doctors without borders and shit."
    She pats me on the back and steps up into the doorway. "Let's do this."
    I lift my leg and kick the door in. As we enter the sparks from my fingers fill the dark hallway with flashes of light.
    A man jumps at me, stabbing his knife into my torso. I rip his soul from him. His black blood sprays me. Ari has pushed several of them against a wall. She holds them there.
    "You know that blood brothels are illegal," she speaks softly.
    The eyes flash on our rings. I pull the knife out and shiver from the pain of it.
    Anger flashes inside of me. "I hate being stabbed."
    The first man against the wall spits at me. I smile and rub my hands together. Ari holds them against the wall.
    "You have been charged, convicted and tried," I whisper and lean in close to the man who spit at me. "I find you guilty."
    His eyes widen as my hands spark his soul from him. I run my hands along the wall, pulling each of them. The pleasure and ecstasy makes me mouth breathe in a way I don’t like doing in front of other people. Not that Ari is other people. She knows how I feel when I do crowds. The bodies drop to the floor, looking like nothing more than gutted dead humans.
    I look around at the room.
    "Stairs over here." The room is a large foyer essentially. There is a desk with a ledger and couches. There are no doors leaving this room. Just a hallway with a set of carpeted stairs. I grab the ledger and run after Ari.
    "Why do Vamps always decorate with the same blood red carpeting? It's so cliché."
    We climb the stairs cautiously. "I know right. Marcus's house is nice, but dude. So retro whorehouse."
    Ari looks back. "I still think it's weird he has a castle. You go left I go right."
    I nod and we split up at the top of the stairs.
    My boots dig into the carpet. I hate the feel of it. Too squishy. I don’t even want to try to imagine the things in this carpet.
    I kick open the first door. A dark haired girl, younger than me by far, sits on the bed looking spaced out. It takes a minute for her eyes to move and register I am even there.
    "You okay?" I ask.
    She shakes her head and speaks a language I don’t know. Her dark silky skin is marred with bites and bruises. Her rail thin arms are filled with needle holes. My hands ball into fists.
    I look around the small room and smell the air. It's rich with blood and sex and drugs, but no immortals. I put a finger to my lips. She nods. I close the door and slip further down the hall. Every door has the same thing, blondes, redheads, brunettes, dark skin, light skin, every kind of skin. There is one in every flavor but no immortals. Each girl is the same, young, skinny and covered in marks and the same empty stare.
    A blonde speaks English with a French accent to me in the last room. "Can you help me?" She whispers.
    "Yeah, but I need to find the vampires. Where are they?"
    She swallows and shakes her head. "I don’t know. They only come at night." She shivers, remembering no doubt.
    "How long have you been here?"
    She wipes her bright blue eyes. "I don’t know. Maybe a month."
    "Are you from France?"
    "Canada. I'm from Montreal."
    "Stay here and don’t move. I'll keep you safe but I need to find them."
    She shakes her head as silent tears stream down her filthy cheeks. "They are not here. Please just take me with you."
    I put a hand out for her. She leaps from the bed, staggering and swaying. Her ice-cold hand almost shocks me. She is nearly naked in old torn and dirty lingerie.
    I pull her down the hall.
    Ari meets me at the end of the hall. "Just dying girls?" She asks.
    I nod. "I'll flash them out in parties of six."
    "They must sleep near here. Those things