Pretty When They Collide (Pretty When She Dies 0.5)(32)

Spotting a Dairy Queen sign down the road, Cassandra opted to grab food. Within a half hour, she was eating the second of the three hamburgers she had bought while perched on the bed of the hotel room. Scott had already made arrangements for her and left a bag inside with everything she needed for the job. Now she was studying on her laptop all the information he had provided on a flash drive tucked into the bag. The room was surprisingly modern and comfortable, much to her relief, but she wouldn’t be staying long. If things went according to plan, she wouldn’t even sleep in the bed.

“Everything has been provided for you,” Scott’s voice narrated the video she was watching. “Schematics of the house, the location of the relic, and the security codes. All came at a high price, but the relic is incredibly rare and your cut, as we discussed, will be very lucrative.”

Cassandra winced when the relic came on screen. It was fairly hideous. Chewing on her thumbnail, she squirmed as a disquieting thought occurred to her. What if Scott actually knew this was all an elaborate trap set by Frank? She immediately dismissed the notion. Scott made a lot of money because of her work and she sincerely doubted he would toss her away. He had seemed genuinely concerned that she had almost been caught in Vegas. Maybe he didn’t consider her to be a friend, but he did consider her to be an asset.

Based on all the information Scott had gathered for her, the job was relatively easy. Drive to an area a half mile outside the complex, leap over the perimeter fence, make her way to the main house, scale the outside, slip in through a balcony doorway, disarm the security system, snatch the artifact from the shelf in Frank’s office, and leave the same way she had entered. But when she added in Aimee’s information, she saw very quickly that the path she needed to take through the house was perfect for an ambush. It was a long hallway with no openings except for at the two ends.

Studying the layout of the house and the guard posts, she didn’t see another feasible way into the house. Like most vampire lairs, there were only two primary entrances and both were heavily guarded.

Again she took inventory of the bag Scott had left for her and checked the weapons. Silver daggers, dart guns, and a stake. The darts injected a strong sedative the second they hit their target. Guns were very loud and too messy.

Flopping back on the bed, she stared up at the ceiling and sighed. “Fuck!” It was going to be rough, but she knew she could do it. She’d have to feed from at least five people to get enough blood in her system, but if she went in at full power, she could do some serious damage. Frank was a lower level vampire, so she was fairly sure she could take him.

Closing the lid of her laptop with one hand, she reached for her half-eaten burger with the other. She’d finish eating human food, then find herself actual human food.

“Time to kick some ass, save the girl, and ride into the sunrise,” she said. “I can do this.”



The rental car melded seamlessly into the darkness dwelling at the base of an outcropping of bedrock. Satisfied that it wouldn’t be detected, Cassandra once more did a quick inventory of all her weapons. Clad in black body armor and heavy duty combat boots, she looked like something out of a science fiction movie. The Kevlar body armor was top of the line and so expensive that Scott made her return it after each job. She was just relieved it wasn’t bulky and allowed her a full range of movement.

Taking in a deep breath, she slowly exhaled. The blood she had consumed was boiling in her veins, imbuing her with the powers of her father. The vampiric aspect of her nature was coiled tight within her by her sheer willpower. It hissed at her to hunt and feed. She felt inhuman, outside of her mortality. All she had to do was release her tight control.

“Here we go,” she whispered, opening her eyes that burned with red fires.

Leaping ten feet up onto the bedrock shelf, she felt the rules of nature unshackle her. She landed easily and perched briefly, scanning the desert before her. In the distance she could see the lights illuminating the perimeter of the vampire’s estate.

It was time.

Like a sledgehammer disintegrating a glass window, her vampire nature shattered her human side. Instantly, she felt her joints popping, her muscles strengthening, and her senses sharpening. With a wild, gleeful grin, she launched herself into the air and landed already in a full sprint. The wind whistled in her ears, giving her body slight resistance as it sliced through the night. Faster than any human ever and matching vampire speed, Cassandra raced across the desert, her boot heels leaving plumes of dirt in her wake.

The fence encircling the estate rose before her, topped with barbwire. Cassandra didn’t even try to climb it, she half-leaped, half-flew over it. Landing hard, she rolled, then was up on her feet immediately. The carefully-sculpted and tended rock garden didn’t even slow her down as she jumped over boulders, cacti, and flowering desert foliage.

She sensed more than saw the first guard. One second she was skirting a Joshua tree, the next second she was slamming her forearm into the throat of the startled man, sending him to the ground gasping for air. Snagging his firearm from his hand, she flung it away and bounded toward the multi-level adobe home before her.

Not even slightly winded, she raced along a walkway straight toward the outside wall. Like the schematic had revealed, most of the windows were either bricked over or heavily barred. The balcony was easy to spot with its wrought-iron railing and red-tile accents. Cassandra jumped, landed on the wall, and scaled it like a spider. The Spider-Man trick drained quite a bit of her power, but she was aiming for swiftness and the element of surprise. Grabbing the rail, she flung her body over it and landed just outside the balcony windows. Pulling out the small device Scott had included in the bag he had left her, she activated it and watched it remotely hack into the security system. Tapping in the code, she saw a small red light on the wall beyond the balcony door wink off.