Immortal Souls (The Immortal Souls: Magic & Chaos)

Chapter 24

Jamie walked down a dark and dingy street, the light that should have been emanating from the streetlamps was virtually nonexistent. Not that Jamie minded much, with his heightened senses he could have found his way through the streets blindfolded.

He turned off the dingy street, into an even dingier alleyway around the side of the seediest, most rundown hotel he had ever seen. As he moved forward, he suddenly noticed a hunched figure on the ground hidden behind the bins. Jamie jumped slightly when he first noticed him, then for a moment afterwards just looked at the man curiously.

He hadn't sensed him before he'd seen him, which was odd.

But that was something that seemed to be happening to him a lot lately. Running into people that his senses told him didn't exist.

Jamie cast his eyes over the spindly man. He was pale and dirty, his clothes worn and torn; he looked as though he hadn't shaved in a month and he smelled as though he hadn't washed since then either.

It didn't take very long for Jamie to determine that the man was dead. He had no audible pulse, his chest was completely still, and no heat radiated from his skin.

Jamie peered over his shoulder at the vacant streets and wondered if he should call someone.

The police?

An ambulance?

After a moment of waiting for someone who he could persuade to be the one to make the phone call, he turned, stepped past the man and walked to the door at the end of the alley-the one marked 'Emergency Exit'-after deciding it would be simpler to inform the people within the club he was on his way to.

The door was broken, so it was easily opened. Beyond that door was another one that had been painted black, making it barely visible in the darkness. He stood in the small entryway, the door in front of him swinging open before the one behind had even closed.

Jamie was surprised but he hid it as best he could. Vampires, he thought, they can sense me.

A girl with vibrant red hair stood on the other side of the door. She looked at him curiously for a moment, then smiled widely as though she were trying to be friendly, but the width of her smile and the amount of teeth she exposed made the action look more threatening than friendly.

Jamie listened carefully, he could hear her heart beating steadily, and her lungs expanding as she breathed in and out. Human, he thought, overcome with disappointment, though he tried not to allow his disappointment to show externally. After all, the odds of him finding somewhere that was actually a club for Vampires had never really been very high.

She's dressed quite oddly, Jamie thought as he did a quick evaluation of her attire. She was wearing a pair of thigh-high leather boots over what appeared to be leather trousers, a black long sleeved top, over which she wore a vest that appeared to be made of silver chainmail.

"Hi," she said after a moment.

Jamie smiled nervously, her attire filling him with a slight unease. "Hello."

"My name's Heather," she said, then slowly looked him up and down. "You're new?" she observed, but stated is as though it was both a fact and a question.

Jamie wasn't sure if she meant to the club or life as a Vampire. To the first one he was new, not so much to the second. Given the fact that she was clearly human, Jamie treated her as he would any other human and assumed she had no knowledge of what he was. He nodded to let her know that she was right, he was new to the club. "I'm Jamie," he said.

"Jamie," she repeated. "I like it, you can come in." She stepped aside to let him pass.

He took a step forward, then paused when he remembered the man outside. "I actually need to ask you something first."