Bleeding Out Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE OSI NOVELS

  Infernal Affairs

  “Infernal Affairs has everything that’s best about the paranormal mystery genre, and it continues to get better.”

  —Owlcat Mountain

  “Filled with snark, wit, emotion, and charm.”

  —DangerousRomance.com

  “A good read.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  Inhuman Resources

  “I love this series with a passion, and Inhuman Resources is definitely my favorite thus far… I love the juxtaposition of modern science (verging on the futuristic sometimes) and weird magic.”

  —The Green Man Review

  “A truly enjoyable urban fantasy filled with magic, romance, and crime fighting that pits semihuman Tess Corday against all that goes bump in the night.”

  —Smexy Books

  “For people who like CSI and its ilk, Inhuman Resources is a good urban fantasy version of the forensic genre. And for all the detecting urban fantasy heroines do, it’s fun to read about one who actually is a member of the magical law enforcement.”

  —The Good, The Bad and The Unread

  A Flash of Hex

  “Wonderfully detailed, easily visualized, and overflowing in paranormal crime scene action. The aspect most likely to capture the reader’s attention is the author’s talent in developing charming characters who are passionate in both their professional and personal lives.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “This procedural murder mystery with a biting supernatural edge is enhanced by the interplay of terrific characters. Battis delivers big-time, so make sure to add this series to your must-read pile.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Author Jes Battis has created a credible mix of science and magic, and the book’s strength is its detail-oriented nature.”

  —Sacramento Book Review

  Night Child

  “Hooks you from the very first line.”

  —Keri Arthur, New York Times bestselling author

  “A good old-fashioned murder mystery.”

  —ReviewingTheEvidence.com

  “Jes Battis takes the readers on a tension-filled journey of murder, mystery, and temptation… An intriguing story line; easy, flowing dialogue; and fascinating characters all combine to keep readers engaged, but it’s the never knowing what’s around the corner that will have readers coming back for more.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “Battis manages to make the world come alive as a workable universe with infinite complexity.”

  —SFRevu

  “[An] absorbing paranormal detective tale… The combo of cutting-edge technology and magic highlights a procedural thriller filled with ominous twists. Telling the tale from the point of view of a stubborn, rule-breaking heroine keeps the tension high and the risk palpable.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Compelling new urban fantasy [that] mixes equal parts forensic investigation, modern science, and down-and-dirty magic to create something new and different… a great start to a new series.”

  —The Green Man Review

  “Unique.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  Ace Books by Jes Battis

  NIGHT CHILD

  A FLASH OF HEX

  INHUMAN RESOURCES

  INFERNAL AFFAIRS

  BLEEDING OUT

  Bleeding

  Out

  Jes Battis

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  BLEEDING OUT

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / June 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Jes Battis.

  Cover art by Timothy Lantz.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed

  or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-56883-5

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is

  stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the

  author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Rowan

  In the golden lightning

  Of the sunken sun,

  O’er which clouds are bright’ning,

  Thou dost float and run,

  Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

  —“To a Skylark,” Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Acknowledgments

  It’s hard to close a series. You don’t want to say good-bye to the characters, even when you know that they’re late for new adventures and you have to say good-bye. I will certainly miss writing about this peculiar family, but I also feel that they can take care of themselves, as they have taken care of me.

  I owe a lot to my friends and family, who call me to make sure I’m alive whenever I’m in the middle of finishing a book. Medrie, Mark, and Rowan, thank you for always letting me come over and play. Bea, thanks for the dirty talk. Mom, thanks for sending me books. Dad, thanks for the cauldron. Manuel, thanks for convincing me to take the teleférico. Madrid, te amo y te agradezco. Vancouver, thanks for everything.

  Very young, I would take my mother’s Meteor and drive into the desert. There I spent entire days, nights, dawns. Driving fast and then slowly, spinning out the light in its mauve and small lines which like veins mapped a great tree of life in my eyes.

  —Mauve Desert, Nicole Brossard

  Table of Contents

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  11

  12

  13

  14

  Remainder

  About the Author

  1

  Nobody speaks until we see the headlights. Then a ripple of energy passes through the dark room. I raise my hand for silence. The van idles for a bit in the driveway, then stops. For a moment there’s nothing more. Then the door of the van opens. Derrick looks at me. I nod. He and Miles cross the room and take up position on either side of the entrance. Now there are footsteps. I breathe. I’m suddenly riven. What if this is a bad idea? What if it goes horribly wrong?

  I hear the key. By now, I really should be past worrying about things going horribly wrong. I should be past fun-sized candy, too, but I’m not.

  The door opens.

  A figure pauses at the entrance. It could be a midnight letter carrier, or a vampire Girl Scout. But I know better. I smile. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, ever since he told me how old he was.

  “Now.”

  Derrick turns on the light. I raise my hands in the air. We raise our voices and scream at him:

  “¡Cumpleaños feliz!”

  For a second, all Lucian can do is stare at us in shock. We’re all wearing pointed hats, even Derrick. Mia and Patrick hold noisemakers, but seem loath to use them. A streamer falls quietly from the ceiling.

  I step forward.

  “Happy ninety-first birthday, Lucian.”

  “When you put it that way, I feel as if my body should actually be decaying.”

  “But it’s not. And I’m thankful for that.”

  “You looked really surprised,” Derrick says. “For one second, I thought you might actually kill us all with necromancy.”

  “Have I ever once tried to do that?”

  “No. But in our line of work, you have to be prepared.”

  Lucian turns to me. “So that’s why you kept sending me on errands today. You were plotting something fierce.”

  “Well, I don’t want to brag. There is punch, though, and possibly Mad Libs.”

  “Thanks.”

  “All right,” Derrick says. “Let’s party like it’s the twenties.”

  “Can we stop referencing my age, please?”

  “Fine. Let’s party like the mystical badasses that we are.”

  Lucian has an odd expression on his face, like uncertain delight. “Still, it’s just another birthday. There’s no need to bring the house down. I’m touched that you guys went to all this trouble, but—”

  Mia hands him a glass of punch. “Lucian, you’re a creepy old man, and we need to celebrate that. Derrick bought an ice-cream cake.”

  Lucian looks at him. “Dude, seriously?”

  “It’s in the kitchen. Want to see it?”

  “I think I do.”

  The kitchen is full of brass light. Derrick’s herbs have perked up in their bottles. Outside, our neighbor is smoking menthols, and I ignore the tickle in my throat. As per instructions laid out by Mia and Patrick, there is a frosted necromancer on the white face of the cake.

  Lucian frowns slightly. “This is me?”

  “No, it’s an everynecromancer,” Mia says.

  “Is the everynecromancer holding someone’s arm?”

  “Of course. Dead bodies are your power source.”

  “I told you he wasn’t going to get it,” Patrick says. “For the record, man, I wanted you to be holding a fudge pitchfork.”

  “Why would I be doing that?”

  I put my arm around him. “Just suck in the love and cut the cake, darling.”

  It’s patio season, festival season, the British Columbia summer that’s always gently nudging you in the direction of a bar. Beyond our house, Commercial Drive simmers with the intensity of grad student drinking. As Lucian gently cuts through his ice-cream icon, I remember what it felt like to kill him. He had ceased to exist in front of me. Now he was grabbing a fork, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we were all sharing frozen dessert with a dead person.

  Okay, I’d said to him once. So you’re basically an undead plant.

  I don’t like that term.

  A zombie plant?

  Tess.

  Just explain it to me. It’s a part of you I’d like to know more about.

  But he hadn’t explained it. He’d kissed me.

  As soon as the cake is gone, the shot glasses come out. Derrick unwraps a bottle of grappamiel from Uruguay. He raises his own shot glass in a toast.

  “Lucian, you are a part of this family. You’ve saved our asses many times in the past, and you gave me the gift of panqueques con dulce de leche. ¡Cumpleaños feliz!”

  The dancing lasts for only about ten minutes, since nobody but Lucian can actually dance. Miles has some sweet moves until his hearing aids run out of juice. Mia brings in Bits ’n Bites, and suddenly it’s just a regular evening with all of us sitting in the living room, competing for attention. Patrick tells us about a vampire who was recently found guilty of dealing blood Popsicles. Like many of his stories, this one ends in public immolation. As Magnate, he oversees vampire justice in Vancouver, which is a lot of responsibility for a kid. Judging from his most recent transcripts—which, obviously, I should not have looked at—most of his legacy is being spent on beer and graphic novels.

  The air dampens, and we’re pulled outside. Mia drags out a box full of cards, and we play Canadian Trivial Pursuit for dummies, which means that any historical question answered by anyone is considered a patriotic victory. Mia racks up points. A dozen universities already want her, but she refuses to make a decision. My heart seizes at the thought of her leaving home. I know she’s not my kid, I know that nothing genetic binds us, but she’s my water, my blood, my very breath. We bought this house so that she could have something close to a normal life. Who will we be without her? Patrick barely needs us at this point, and even though he hasn’t said anything, I know that Derrick would like to move in with Miles. Any sane person would.

  I look at Lucian. I love him, but I’m not moving to Yaletown. Suddenly, I imagine myself living alone in the house, and it’s hard to breathe. I don’t need all this space. It will only attract ghosts, or worse.

  I stand up. “I’m going to the store for cigarettes and chips.”

  “We also need Brillo Pads,” Derrick says.

  “I can’t promise anything.”

  Lucian also stands. “I’ll come with you.”

  “No, stay here. It’s your party.”

  Victoria is aglow with patio parties, in spite of the mosquitoes. I could just hit the store on the corner, but I’ve got a wine buzz and the air smells good. I walk down to the Drive. I am a lit female spectator. If anything comes up, I’ve got a sharp athame in my purse whose teeth have been collecting dust. It’s been two months since I quit my job as an Occult Special Investigator. So far, we’ve been okay. I still make two-thirds of my salary. But my benefits will end soon. I have to make a decision, not tonight, but soon. I am fed up with the tyranny of decision making.

  The pubs overflow onto decks that strain to hold the collective intelligence and anxiety of keyed-up graduate students. Everyone is smoking, drinking Keith’s, and talking about what program they’re in. I pass the co-op bookstore, where a few people still linger over the ’zines. From here, I can discern the rumble of the 135 as it speeds down Twelfth, in its endless pilgrimage up and down Burnaby Mountain.

  I step into a convenience store at the corner of Adanac, whose name—Canada spelled backward—has always annoyed me for no good reason. The inside of the store is bright and yellow. Those bastard fluorescent tubes would just love to give me a migraine. I guess I really am the kind of person who carries a dagger but not sunglasses. I stare at the shelves, which mostly disappoint. I fight the desire for tea biscuits. I grab scrubbers, creamer, pop, and mini-eggs, which I thought used to be rationed by
the Canadian government but are now apparently always in season. I get toilet paper because there’s never enough. I consider buying condoms. Why does this purchase always make me feel like the Whore of Babylon? I decide against it and pick up Sensodyne toothpaste instead. I need to floss more. I wanted to initiate a flossing regime this summer, until Mia pointed out that I was really the only person in the house who didn’t floss. I’ve just never liked the feeling of that razory silk between molars, like a garrote.

  As I’m paying for my items, a drunk vampire walks in. At least, I think he’s drunk. His expression is weird. Vampires get smarter as their hunger increases, which is why they’ve survived for so long. It takes a lot of alcohol to faze them, and even then, the spark of unlife remains keen in their eyes. His are glassy. He looks more stoned than drunk. His mouth twitches. Stoned, but peckish.

  The earth is also peckish, which I know because I can sense it. I have always heard mountains cough and magma whisper. That second thing actually creeps me out and gives me acid reflux. People like me chat with the universe through materia, which is aware and thirsty. Linus, our DNA technician, once called it a bastard energy, because it makes the universe die faster.

  I draw in some earth materia, which makes me want to smoke more than you’d ever believe. I don’t throw out anything serious, just a few sparks to let him know that I’m not playing. He stares at me for a few seconds. Then he turns and staggers out the door. I finish paying for my items. The exhausted guy behind the counter has no idea how close he’s just come to being someone’s nightcap.

  I step outside. There’s no sign of the vampire. My senses are dull from the wine, so I pause to listen closely. I let the street evaporate. I can still see the buildings, but they’re pale before the light of so many night things panting and trying to devour one another. Different flows of materia slip by at astonishing speeds, as if merging onto a metaphysical freeway. The street complains, the telephone poles curse, the water glares, but I sense nothing like a vampire nearby. This relaxes me.