Coyle and Fang: Curse of Shadows (Coyle and Fang Adventure Series Book 1) by Robert III (best books for 7th graders .txt) 📕

“The aurorium. That has an effect, doesn’t it? Someone smarter than us felt a blood transfusion was necessary in case a situation like this ever turned up. And it looks like it’s paying off.”

He threw her into the wall. Lath and plaster shattered, and Fang flopped on the bed. Stinging needles dug into her body, nerves, bones. And, just for a moment, she wanted so much to be back in the small cell again, sleeping peacefully with her dreams of Embeth.

“We gave you a home and a purpose. Better than the life you were living in the asylum, wasn’t it? I’m sure your parents would have been proud of you. But they disowned you, didn’t they?”

He picked her up over his head and slammed her into another wall. Every inch of her body was on fire, and her breaths came in ragged gasps.

This was what dying felt like.

She was torn between the promise of sweet relief and the bitterness of not keeping her promise to Embeth.

“Your lungs will collapse any moment, followed by the imminent snapping of your spine as your back spasms. Terrible price to pay for a night out, Fang.”

He grabbed her hair and pulled her face up.

“What were you thinking?” he asked. He looked deep in her drooping, bleeding eyes. “Did you think you’d be free? Be able to kill us anytime you want?”

“What’s happening?” a woman asked.

“Veiul,” he answered, looking toward the open door. “Look who showed up.”

Fang’s eyes floated through the room until she found a familiar face—not a vampire, but some other kind of preternatural. One that could shift her appearance.

“Ah! We haven’t worked together in years,” Veiul said, and her face shifted until she resembled Fang. “You do look familiar...” Veiul’s face melted and shifted again into that of another woman. “What are you doing out of your cage?”

“She tried to assassinate me,” Trevin said. “Can you imagine the audacity?”

Veiul’s face and voice, shifted back into Fang’s. “Ah, well... um... I may be strong and pretty, but I’m not too smart, am I?” She tapped her head and crossed her eyes, laughing with Trevin.

“And she just found out about my aurorium,” he said, and finally noticed the blood on the floor. “Oh! Goodness, look at this mess. Fang, you’re bleeding all over the place. All over my shoes! And the poor woman’s new carpet!”

“Are you going to take her head?” Veiul asked, squinting at Fang.

“Yes. Of course.”

“You have quite the collection, don’t you?”

“Over forty-five.” He looked at the ceiling and rubbed his pudgy, clean-shaven jaw. “And hers will fit nicely in my collection of conquests. But let her suffer for now. We’ll go to Maggie’s first and get a drink. Then we can find a glass jar.”

Veiul looked at the prostitute. “And what about her?”

Trevin turned. “Leave her alone. What’s she going to do? Tell everyone there’s a vampire in her room?”

He turned to the prostitute. “Hear that, love? Don’t do anything here until I get back, and I’ll pay you handsomely.” The woman nodded.

“Well, then,” Trevin said. “That’s settled. Fang, good seeing you again.” His smile was vulgar. “And I can’t wait to see you on my shelf.” He stepped carefully through the debris and out of the room. His footsteps echoed down the hall before Veiul turned her sneer to Fang. The two stared at each other, a mirror image of two assassins. Only one was dying.

“Let’s make this interesting,” Veiul said. She plunged her dagger into the other woman three times and grinned. She yanked out the blade and held it under Fang’s nose.

“Smell this banquet.” Thick blood dripped off the blade and onto Fang’s chest. “I want you to hunger and have a hope of survival before you die.”

Veiul slammed the dagger into Fang’s heart and curled her lip. “That’s for leaving me in Peking.” She ripped the dagger out and glared as she closed the door to the room.

The wound in Fang’s heart was barely healing itself. Waves of agony crashed over her, and she tried to sit up but that slid further down instead.

A whimper drew her attention, and she looked at the other woman. A trail of red flowed from the prostitutes wounds. Adrenaline rushed through Fang’s veins, instinct beckoning her to feed. But the woman was innocent. And Fang never touched the innocent. Unless...

She used her Reach and touched the dying woman’s conscience. Traces of a single murder lingered on her dark soul. Someone close to her, a male, older relative. She killed him without remorse.

Guilty.

Fang concentrated on the rise and fall of the dying woman’s chest as she crawled across the debris.

Chapter 3

Hunter’s Point

San Francisco police and detective training grounds

Six months later

Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands.

Amen.

Coyle finished praying and looked down at her hands. Could they accomplish what she wanted—these insignificant hands that sought her own selfish ways?

She raised her head and closed her eyes. Took a deep breath through her nose. The kind the doctors taught her. She exhaled through her mouth. Time to focus.

Settled?

She squinted up at the bright sun, arched her back and rearranged her shoulder-length light brown hair into a tight bun. A few of the men looked her way, appreciating the shape of her. She was fair-skinned, graceful, petite and seemingly coy though her demeanor held a sense of boldness and tenacity. Not a trace of make-up lined her strong, yet charming face and she didn’t need a speck of it to attract men. She wore no smile across her thin lips and the shadow of a bruise lined her thin nose and into the corner of her hazel-green eyes. Her gaze shifted from the leer of the men back to the cloudless sky. The sun’s rays alighting on the bare necks of the academy trainees as they awaited their fates. All of them fiddled with their notebooks or clothes or hats, nervous before their test for detective. She wished she had brought her pipe, regardless of the looks she