Bleeding Out Read Online Free PDF Page A

this song, just before we were nearly killed by an Iblis. Simpler times.
    Ru heads for the box sets in the basement. It’s freezing down here, and there are less people. I can’t tell the customers from the employees. Sometimes people emerge from a long corridor in the back, but everyone’s wearing the same clothes; everyone’s carrying merchandise. They might be coming from anywhere. Lucian thumbs his way through the foreign film section. I look at the posters, which are mostly of superheroes and women in micro-shorts. None of them seem appropriate for Ru. Now, if they had a poster of Jupiter, we’d be in business.
    I’m just about to ask one of the non-salespeople if they have an astronomy section when everything gets quiet. My senses are awake. Something’s different. I go in search of Lucian, but he’s wandered off somewhere. I send him a text:
meet me out front
. It could just be a few stoner vampires craving music, but that’s a best-case scenario. I walk around the basement in circles. Ru’s not here. I take the escalator to the mezzanine floor, and find him browsing through techno albums.
    “Tess.” He waves. “They have the new DJ Tiësto.”
    “We’re leaving,” I say quietly.
    “Oh. Because of the vampires?”
    I always forget what a good nose he has. “How many are there?”
    “Four. They smell different, though. Strange.”
    “Strange good?”
    “English is not my first language, but is strange ever good?”
    “No.” I sigh. “Okay. Lucian’s meeting us out front. With any luck, they won’t even notice us leave.”
    We take the stairs to the ground floor. I see the vampires. One of them looks right at me, and it’s like a kick to the stomach. He’s the one I saw in the convenience store last night. His eyes are still glassy. He smiles.
    I grab Ru’s arm.
    “Follow me. As soon as we get outside, they’ll scatter.”
    “Your words do not match your feelings.”
    “Excuse me?” I steer him toward the entrance.
    “Your breathing has quickened. Your heart rate is elevated. Why should vampires make you so nervous? Your city is full of them.”
    We exit the store, and sunlight breaks over my face. Lucian’s there. He gives me a funny look.
    “In a hurry?”
    I try to look like I’m not freaking out. “Nah. I just couldn’t stand the air-conditioning in there anymore. Do you mind if we go?”
    “It’s not up to me. The afternoon belongs to Ru.”
    He stares at both of us impassively. I want to use sign language to say,
Not a word about the vampires
, but Lucian can speak ASL. All I can do is take a breath and trust in fate not to screw me over.
    “I’m hungry,” Ru says. “Let’s go.”
    He takes my right hand. Lucian takes my left. How do creatures like us find each other? After years of listening to the universe in tremors and lit wicks, I still don’t know what’s driving it all, what’s driving us. Ru’s hand is small and cold in mine. I try to imagine him running from chain lightning, or toward it, playing chicken.
    We get our coffee and doughnuts. As Lucian pays, it occurs to me that he’s said absolutely nothing about Theresa’s death. I imagine that’s what he and Selena were talking about. Why else would he have been in her office? I’m starting to get twitchy around him. Lucian and the late Lord Nightingale were close in some way that only necromancers understand. It seems only fair that weshould talk about it over tequila shots, or something along those lines. But he isn’t saying a word.
    We grab coffee and take Ru back to the lab. He stays quiet about the vampires that we saw in HMV. There was something off about them, and not just because they were tempting fate by day-walking. I make a note to ask Patrick about it when I get home, although chances are he’ll be burning the midnight heme, or whatever vampires call working late. Lucian and I walk through multiple security checks without speaking. He surrenders his visitor pass at the front desk. We walk