I limped over to Zane, my crashing adrenaline letting the pain back in. “Are you all right?” I asked as I helped my brother to his feet.

“Fine.” He looked from the vampire to me. “What the hell was that, Leda?”

“I got mad.”

His eyes widened. “I can see that.”

“Ok, enough fun,” I said. “Let’s get this vampire tied up and brought in before he decides to wake up.”

2

Pandora's Box

“This is a vampire,” I said as Zane and I dumped the sleeping vampire onto the sofa of Sheriff Wilder’s reception lounge. The window shutter lodged in Mark’s gut shifted, and a fresh gush of blood sprinkled across the sofa’s faded green fabric.

The sheriff’s eighteen-year-old daughter was already at the phone, buzzing her father’s line. She was the office secretary. I’d met her a bunch of times coming into the sheriff’s office after a job. She’d always been so bubbly, so vibrant. I’d never seen her freak out like this. Then again, I’d never brought in a bleeding vampire on her shift. They weren’t exactly the teddy bears of the paranormal world—well, unless you got all warm and fuzzy about having your neck chewed on. Honestly, I’d never understood the appeal.

“He wasn’t supposed to be a vampire,” I continued.

Carmen Wilder’s eyes darted back and forth from the vampire drooling on their sofa to the blinking telephone. She mashed the button a few more times.

“Nothing in his file even hinted that he was a vampire. The file you gave me said he was human,” I finished as the sheriff himself, Leland Wilder, rushed into the reception lounge.

“It must have been a new development,” he said, his face going as pale as his whitewashed walls.

“You knew.” I glared at him. “You knew, and you didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t,” he insisted, leaning down to throw the vampire over his shoulder. Leland Wilder might have been well over fifty, but he was no slouch. He was built like a warhorse. “Really, Leda. I had no idea.”

Metal screeched as he opened the cell door. He tossed the vampire inside, then turned the lock. A golden glow—like a million buzzing fireflies—spread across the bars. The sheriff’s office was one of the few places in town powered by Magitech. The gigantic wall that stood between Purgatory and the Wasteland was the notable other. With the flip of a switch, the soldiers guarding the wall could power up the magic generator, and a protective shield would flare to life. They hadn’t had to do it yet—so far, the monsters were keeping their distance from the town—but you never knew when they’d decide their big slice of hell just wasn’t big enough.

“Bringing in this vampire nearly killed us,” I told him.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want apologies. I want answers.”

He lifted his hand, waving me into his office. I followed him inside, not waiting for Zane. He was busy comforting Carmen. She’d already nearly forgotten about the bleeding vampire sleeping in the jail cell. My brother, the charmer.

Sheriff Wilder closed the door behind me, then sat down on the edge of his desk. “Do you want some tea? Coffee?” His gaze dipped to my blood-smeared bare midriff. “A healing potion?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Just answers. What’s going on here?”

“I wish I knew.” He sighed. “The paranormal police precinct that issued the bounty didn’t tell me Mark Silverstream is a vampire. I just called it in to get a pickup and gave them a piece of my mind about keeping this from me.”

“And what did they say?”

“That Silverstream was turned after he escaped custody in New York,” the sheriff replied. “He must have called in a favor, maybe got someone to turn him outside the system.”

“And the paranormal police didn’t put it on the poster because then they’d have to pay more for the reward.”

“It’s not just about the money, Leda. Lately, bounty hunters have been wary about tracking down vampires. I don’t blame them, especially after what happened in Brimstone.”

Vampires had a very strict hierarchy and tomes of rules. Rules about who got to be turned. About where they could live. About who and how they could fight. About how they may speak and who they could eat. It was all very medieval, but it was these rules that kept the vampires—and their bloody instincts—in check.

But a few months ago, a group of vampires went rogue. They took over a small town called Brimstone, claiming it as their own. By the time the bounty hunters arrived on the scene, the vampires had already killed half the humans in town. The bounty hunters soon followed them to their graves.

The paranormal soldiers went in next. They managed to take out a few of the vampires before they were discovered, but as soon as they were, it was game over. The vampires massacred them. None of them made it out alive.

Finally, the Legion was sent in. The Legion of Angels were the elite supernatural soldiers, their powers gifted to them by the gods themselves. They were the ones called in when things went really bad—like apocalyptic bad. They upheld the gods’ order. They dealt out punishment without hesitation or mercy. If the Legion sent their soldiers to kill you, you were already dead. They were deadly efficient, and more powerful than anyone on Earth.

At the head of the Legion were the angels. And you did not want to get on their bad side. They were as brutal as they were beautiful, all shining white halo and everything.