The Blood In The Beginning

By Kim Falconer

Knock down, kickass nightclub bouncer Ava Sykes takes us deep into a dystopian world and out the other side in this dark and gritty, high–action urban fantasy

Some things are better left in the dark . . .

Undergraduate by day, bouncer by night, Ava Sykes is just trying to make her way in New LA, a city recovering in the 'Aftermath' the time after an earthquake tore the country apart. Ava studies hard, trains at the local dojo, and teaches kids self–defence. Sure, she has a rare blood disorder and a stolen identity, but who doesn't keep a few secrets these days? Life is tough, but when Ava takes a job at the trendy new club, Poseidon, her financial worries seem to be over.Then the evil wakes up.After stumbling into the VIP area of the club, where humans are on the menu, Ava is attacked in the street, and finds herself in the hospital, trying to put the pieces together. The bizarre hallucinations aren't helping, and neither is Dr. Miguel Rossi, the man who claims to know more about her origins than she does.

Shocked to the core at the discovery, Ava begins a search for her birth mother – and the truth –  but with a copycat killer on her tail, the attractive and powerful Daniel Bane offering to protect her and a doctor bent on unravelling her mysterious 'condition', the facts are hard to pin down. Meanwhile, the 'otherness' in her blood makes her increasingly irresistible to all the wrong people.
Ava used to dream of knowing where she came from but faced with the truth, she'd give anything to forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781489210654

Kim Falconer

Kim Falconer is a bestselling speculative fiction author with nine published novels. Her work is described as contemporary, dark and compelling, romantic, provocative, and supercharged with high-intensity action. Originally from California, she lives on the far eastern coast of Australia with a house full of kids, and two extraordinary spotted cats.    To find out more, visit Kim on her website and web portal.   You can also follow her on:  Facebook Instagram  Twitter  Google+  Pinterest       

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

‘Heads up!’ A warning came through my earpiece as the door flew open. Two men, one average build, one overweight, tumbled past and hit the sidewalk, fists flying. The smell of sour beer and club music blasted out with them, the bass vibrating my bones. A few girls in short-shorts and sparkling tops squealed. The rest of the crowd cheered.

Typical midnight in Newton, Los Angeles.

‘I’m on this,’ I said to Jeff, the other security guard working the door.

‘All yours, Sykes.’ He had my back, if I needed it, but I wasn’t planning on this taking long.

The big chump pounding the other guy into the kerb was my target. As his fist came up for another blow, I jumped on his back, grabbed his wrist with my left hand, crooked his arm and shoved my right through it like a lever. A little lift and his face slammed forward into the ground. When he tried to move, I amped up the torque. He groaned, but not as hard as the poor bastard trapped underneath him.

‘Alright, big guy. Up you come.’ I lightened the pressure just enough for him to move to his knees. The man underneath blinked his one good eye at me; the other was already swollen shut. I recognised him from an hour ago, when he swaggered his skinny ass up to me and flashed ID, saying he knew the governor, or some crap, and I could smell the chemicals oozing off his skin. The crusts of coke residue on the inside of his nose weren’t hard to spot either, now that he was sprawled on his back. ‘Stay put!’

He didn’t argue.

I pulled the heavyweight up, and he tried to turn on me.

‘Really?’ I cranked his arm. ‘You want to do that?’

He froze, submitting to the restraint then, unbelievably, tried to break away again.

‘Dumbass. How high are you tonight?’ Jeff had caught him doing lines with a couple of girls in the ladies room, but he’d waved a wad of cash, meaning he had the boss’s blessings, and went back to it. Nothing we could do about it. Money talked at Lucky Lounge, but he was mine now. I kicked the back of his knee and we were on the ground, my elbow clipping the kerb. I repressed a groan; he didn’t.

His collarbone crunched, or maybe his shoulder. It sounded painful, whatever it was. The bozo gasped for air. Suddenly, he was compliant. ‘Let’s try this again.’ The new takedown worked better than I’d hoped, my training paying off in spades. ‘Get your ass up, and behave.’

As he stood, I drove him straight across the sidewalk and into the wall. His cheek flattened against the stucco, nose gushing blood.

‘You’re dead, bitch.’ The effectiveness of his words were lost in the nasal tone.

‘Sure I am.’

Sirens whirled in the background. I lowered my voice, speaking into my mic. ‘Hey, Dean. Cops are here.’

A string of curses came through the headset. I sympathised. The LAPD were as likely to arrest our manager as they were to haul these douches away. With so many cops on the take, it was hard to know what to expect. ‘You alright in there, Dean?’

‘Yeah, we’re sweet, Sykes.’ He didn’t sound like he meant it, but then he thanked me for the heads up. That was sincere.

When I started bouncing for Lucky Lounge, the guys thought it was a joke. A chick handling the door? They pissed themselves laughing. Then they got to know me — cool under pressure and surprisingly strong, for a ‘chick.’ They’d asked a lot of questions, which I ignored. They’d guessed right, though. I’d lived through the Big One. Not everyone in LA had.

That quake was still a source of controversy. Yeah, the San Andreas Fault tended to rumble — I took geology as an undergrad, so I knew that much — but part of California dropping into the ocean … um, no. That was beyond even the most way-out conspiracy theories, until fifteen years ago when a series of quakes went literally off the Richter scale. A section of the coastline split like someone cracked a peanut shell, leaving pieces scattered along the seafloor.

Some blamed it on fracking. Others said it was God’s punishment. Not that I attributed anything biblical to it. If it had been Righteous Intervention, the ‘higher powers’ had neglected to eradicate the bad guys. Gangs, drug dealers and thugs were still aplenty. If anything, more of them emerged and took control in the anarchy of the Aftermath, flooding in from other cities to pick over the spoils.

‘What happened?’ A lanky, uniformed officer stepped in with his partner, pulling me from my thoughts.

‘A coked-up asshole happened.’ It didn’t take long for them to cuff both men and haul them into a squad car. Small favours. Perhaps we had ‘good’ cops tonight; as long as they didn’t let the men out around the corner and pocket their cash.

‘Sykes! Who started it?’ Dean, the manager of Lucky Lounge, was suddenly in my face.

I pushed back the strands of dark hair that had escaped my French braid. Joe Blow had managed to pull out a section and, while it might be better to keep my hair short, I hadn’t had time to cut it recently, not since my last birthday, nine months ago. Plus, it grew insanely fast. ‘Didn’t see a thing until they flew out the door.’

Dean grumbled. It was the third drunk and disorderly on record this week. He had to be getting edgy, clocking those fines. A few more and the club might have to close down for a while, or pay someone off, big-time. He looked over his shoulder as Detective Rourke’s unmarked Ford sedan pulled in behind the cop car. We both sighed. Rourke was a good one. At least tonight they’d charge the assholes, not Dean, or me.

Rourke looked stressed, his square face drawn, iron-grey hair in a fresh buzz cut. He was fighting fit, though. No doubt there. We had a silent ‘this again’ exchange before he shook his head and made his way toward us. I repressed a smile. The detective and I went way back, but not in a cosy family friendship way, hell no. He’d set me straight when I went a little wayward. Surviving the Aftermath, who didn’t have issues? Okay, a lot wayward. Rourke kept me out of juvie, for the most part, and though there’d been no luck finding decent foster care, he started me in the LA-MMA junior circuit, and that saved my life. ‘You want to fight, you might as well learn how not to be killed.’ When I showed up for my first martial arts class, he was leading. Yeah, we went way back.

‘What am I going to do now?’ Dean was a short, thin man who wore his anxiety inside-out.

‘Not my problem, boss.’ I adjusted my left earphone and went back to the door. They paid me to bounce the rowdies, not liaise with the cops. ‘You could stop selling booze, and be a little less lenient with the drug abuse,’ I said over my shoulder, but Dean had already gone to intercept Rourke. It was back to guard dog duty for me, which was a relief. Talking to beat cops, even when I was in the right, wasn’t one of my favourite things. It had something to do with the ‘flying under the radar’ thing. I never knew if they were going to help me, or put me in cuffs.

I took my place at the front of the line, standing military-style at-ease: legs shoulder-width apart, arms behind my back, eyes forward. I caught a few comments from a couple of guys down the line, but my stare shut them up. Stupid drunk-ass clowns. It was enough to put a girl off men entirely. Almost. Of course, without them, Lucky Lounge wouldn’t need a bouncer. I dropped the random thoughts and nodded to Jeff. He was busy stepping in on an argument halfway along the line. Work was not the place to chew on the future. It was definitely not the time to think about the thesis presentation I had to deliver at 10.00 a.m. tomorrow morning. The senior lecturer–audited one. Not going there now.

I squared my shoulders a bit more, and lifted my face, fixing on the crowd. A classic beauty, Betty Smathers used to say. Right. What did a foster mother from South Bay know? The only thing classic she ever saw were the Buicks her son jacked. I quickly dumped those thoughts as well, going deeper into ‘impenetrable’ mode. I wanted the crowd to see five foot seven, one hundred thirty pounds of intimidation packed into tight black jeans and a black tee, marked only with the Lucky Lounge logo — two martini glasses clinking together with a four-leaf clover above — stitched on the small front pocket. Most people thought bouncers had to be heavyweight muscle-bound meatheads on ’roids — male, naturally — but they didn’t, if they knew how to fight. I relaxed inwardly, letting peripheral vision take over. On the outside, I remained as hard as my steel-toed, Timberland boots. The night was young. Anything could happen.

After Jeff handled the altercation, the crowd stayed contained. Their ringside seats to fight night, and the LAPD’s unusually quick response time, kept them subdued. When a man walked purposely toward me, I didn’t break stance. He was dressed much like me in black jeans, black shirt and boots. Interesting.

‘Quite a performance,’ he said as he stood a little to the side. He was medium height, with a ruddy complexion. Not handsome, but sexy vibe, in a street-hardened sort of way. Weird with the shades, though. It was the middle of the night. He took a superman pose. I could practically see the cape flapping in the wind behind him.

‘Just doing my job,’ I said. Who the hell was this guy? As he moved closer, beneath a hint of cheap cologne, I caught a whiff of blood. What the hell? I waited for him to explain himself. He didn’t.

‘Sir, you’re going to need to step back, unless you want to give me a name.’ I didn’t keep a clipboard. All the names on the door list were in my head, compliments of a nearly perfect photographic memory.

He didn’t say anything, just pulled a card out of his jeans pocket and handed it over.

I glanced at it before handing it back. ‘Poseidon?’

‘It’s a new club.’

Like I didn’t know. Ever since the Big One changed the topography of LA, clubs were popping up everywhere. Who knew certain business owners were going to become billionaires when California cracked? Even a crap-ass housing project becomes prime real estate if it suddenly sports an ocean view. But Poseidon was something else entirely. Everyone on campus talked about it. Cate, who claimed me as her BFF, had landed a job there, as a ‘siren.’ Not my gig, what with the coconut-covered breasts and glittery fish-like tail, but if they were looking for a bouncer, that was another thing.

He tilted his head. ‘Come by tomorrow, late afternoon, and talk to the boss.’ When I didn’t respond, he leaned closer. ‘The pay’s impressive.’

Cate had mentioned that. ‘Thanks.’ Money was money, and my job could dry up if the lounge closed. This might just be my lucky night.

He must have sensed the interest. ‘I’m Billy,’ he said and offered the card again.

‘Ava Sykes.’ I took it, and he left me to my job. Three hours later, I was on the bus, heading down South Broadway for the fifteen minute ride home.

* * *

It was 3.45 a.m. when I swiped the keypad and punched in the code. The door to the apartment building clicked open, and I smiled up at the hidden camera. Force of habit. It wasn’t manned any more. With dwindling relief funds, the outer city’s security systems had suffered. South Gate’s twenty-four hour watch was one of the first to go, but I didn’t mind. Call it affordable rent.

I padded down the ground floor hallway and opened the first door on the left. 3.46 a.m. I wouldn’t get more than a few hours’ sleep and sleeping meant no time to prep my slides and run through the presentation. I locked my gun in the safe and thought through the options. Yeah, I had a photographic memory. Images were easy to memorise, but I couldn’t just regurgitate this stuff. It had to make sense, become a part of me. ‘Screw it. I’m staying up.’

It’s never a good sign, talking to walls, and worse when you swear at them, but it seemed important to declare my intentions aloud. After a hot shower, I rough-dried my hair, slipped on satin basketball shorts and a tattered UCLA tee, brewed a pot of organic coffee and got to work. It wasn’t long before the phone played my least favourite morning ringtone, making my stomach growl, right on cue.

Smog-brown sunlight splashed across the kitchen table, which doubled as a desk. Time to copy my work to a flash drive and send the as-good-as-it-would-get assignment to my CloudBox — a chunk of cyber-storage real estate dearly paid for. I yawned deep and stretched my legs. There wasn’t far to walk to the living area, which was mostly cushions, a bookshelf, and a low coffee table. Tucked in the corner was the gun safe. That was it. In the tiny adjoining bedroom sat my queen-size futon, taking up most of the floor space. ‘Tonight, for sure. It’s you and me, baby.’ Now I was talking to my bed. I reached the far wall, touched my toes and straightened to twist and crack my back.

The apartment was on the ground floor of one of the few buildings around to survive the Big One. People also called it the ‘last quake’, but there had been plenty since, just not strong enough to split apart any more of the State. The initial repair efforts, in New LA County at least, deserved a medal, although having relief funding in the trillions helped. Who couldn’t make things as good as new, with that kind of backing? Fifteen years later the funding wasn’t so generous. It had dried up completely in Anaheim, for example. There was nothing there any more except capped fracking wells and an abandoned amusement park. Kinda sad. I’d heard Disneyland was amazing, once. Earthquakes will do that to a city, if that’s what really caused it.

There were all kinds of conspiracy theories.

One claimed a mob boss had nuked West LA, but that was ridiculous. As if they could’ve gotten their hands on a warhead back then. Besides, the fallout would have triggered major issues for half a millennium. I closed my eyes, running the equation. If there are N radioactive nuclei at some time t, then the number ∆N which would decay in any given time interval ∆t would be proportional to N. Not good odds, even for kingpins like Freeman or Rodriguez. Yeah, I knew who the underground bosses were. In my line of work, punters tossed their names around like volleyballs, usually attached to ugly-ass threats. I’d gotten a few of those in the last three years at Lucky’s. Show me a bouncer this side of town who hadn’t!

I put on a fresh pot of coffee, and set a pot of water to boil. There were just enough steel-cut oats left in the box for a decent feed. ‘Tomorrow, shop!’ While the oats boiled, I got dressed. Easy job. There was only one pair of clean jeans in the drawer. The rest of my clothes were in the laundry basket, or piled on the floor. I dropped my shorts, pulled on the jeans, found my lucky sky-blue bra with dark satin stitching, a navy tank top and a pair of lapis earrings. Back in the kitchen I poured the last of the rice milk on my oats, drizzled a bit of honey from the spoon and ate it straight out of the pot.

Merging with the hot oats aroma, I caught a whiff of my laundry. Bad. That had to be dealt with. Sleep, shop, laundry, I ticked off in my head. The things I hadn’t done, but must … soon. In the bathroom, I brushed my hair back into a ponytail, checked my phone for messages and swore. Time to go! It was a forty-five minute bus ride across town to the UCLA campus in Beverly Hills. I probably should have soaked the pot in the sink with the other dirty dishes, but … later.

* * *

Ten a.m. came with the expected physical signs: burning eyes, stiff neck, headache. Oh, boy. My palms were sweating as I walked to the podium, footsteps echoing through the virtually empty UCLA lecture hall. That was a plus. It lessened the potential for public humiliation. The only seats occupied were the front two rows. I squeezed my eyes shut a few times, trying to alleviate the sting … eye drops might have helped, along with fresh contacts. They were prescription, for my mixed astigmatism, a near–far sighted combo, and tinted to keep down the glare. I had partial colour blindness too, but that’s another story. Bottom line, sleep deprivation wasn’t a good look. Hopefully, the examiners would be glued to the screen, and my riveting presentation, not my tired face.

It took a minute to password my way through security, log into my CloudBox — and bring up the visuals. I synched with the screen behind me and cleared my throat. ‘Good morning, faculty.’ My voice broke and I tried to humph without sounding like a cat coughing up a fur ball. This was not my favourite part of being fourth year: standing in front of a critical audience, my knowledge and abilities in question. Who in their right mind would want to try and explain auto-immune disorders to a group of scientists who knew hundreds of times more about the subject than anyone alive?

The mic gave an ear-piercing screech as I adjusted it, which didn’t help to calm me down. The lights dimmed and the large screen illuminated. The glare was so strong, I couldn’t read the notes on my tablet. Perfect. I sucked in a deep breath, and ploughed on.

‘Since the first wave of the Aftermath, auto-immune disorders have escalated, not just here in LA, but globally. These diseases cross all borders, cultures and peoples, targeting young and old alike. The epidemiology is hard to trace, but at its core is a potentially fatal flaw …’ I choked on that. This topic got under my skin because I had one of those pesky flaws myself. At times like these, I could almost hear the clock ticking. I cleared my throat. ‘… a potentially fatal flaw in the evolution of the human genome. Constant bombardment from microwaves, radiation and carcinogenic substances has caused an abnormal gene expression, including the conditional deletion of the Bcl-x gene from red blood cells, which becomes apparent when the body loses its ability to tell the difference between self and non-self.’

I swiped the small screen on the podium, bringing up the next visual behind me. It showed a clip of a blood clot forming at 500x magnification, courtesy of APS — antiphospholipid antibody syndrome — in action. As I talked about causes and potential cures, moving on to my personal favourite, hemolytic anemia and its variants under the umbrella of AADD — Aftermath associated degenerative diseases — my eyes came back to one of the examiners. I’d never seen him before, which wasn’t uncommon. UCLA hosted the largest science campus in the western US, and specialists in the field were invited in to evaluate fourth year students, especially ones like me who hoped to land an internship with the LA branch of the CDC, the Centre for Disease Control. This guy looked too young though. Maybe an intern auditing my talk? Who are you?

The thought floated through my head. Not a welcome distraction. Every time I looked, he was staring at me, his expression a cross between curious and accusatory. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Oh, hell! I had the freaking wrong slide up. I pulled my focus back to the presentation and kept my gaze well away from handsome mystery man in seat A15. Sure, it registered. Handsome. Not helping.

Twenty minutes later, the lights went up and there was a brief, but slightly more than perfunctory, applause. On a scale of one to ten, for senior lecturers that was at least a nine, nearly a standing ovation. It made me smile, and in a momentary lapse, my eyes drifted back to seat A15. Big mistake. The floor was open to questions, and he took it as a personal invitation.

‘You mention the fatigue associated with auto-immune hepatitis. What test would differentiate auto-immune liver disease from other hepatic disorders?’

I swallowed hard, not because I didn’t have a damn good answer, but because his eyes were boring into me. Almond-shaped dark eyes. They had a wild look, or was that the unruly hair? It was like being on a witness stand, which I guess was the point of the exercise. He wasn’t coming across as an intern. His voice was too confident. I reviewed the role of typical histological findings in both AILD and other chronic liver diseases, finishing with a discussion of immunoglobulins and various triggers for immune response. He questioned again, and for a while, we had our own private ping-pong match going on. Then others had comments and questions for me and, while I engaged, out of the corner of my eye I saw him check his phone. He nodded vaguely in my direction and left. As he walked out of the hall, a lingering thought again floated through my head.

Who are you?

CHAPTER TWO

Afternoon light slanted between the tall buildings of North Grand Avenue, one of the plusher parts of the city. The bus pulled away as I walked past Grand Park, catching a bit of breeze from the open spaces. It still smelled predominantly of car exhaust and blistering hot pavement, but there was a hint of fresh-cut grass, newly watered. No shortage of funds in this district. The busy street turned to South Grand, leading toward my destination: Poseidon. I was still riding high on the general thumbs-up I got for my presentation, so I’d decided to roll the dice again, while feeling lucky. A job at this end of town could be just what my bank account needed.

I walked beside shiny new skyscrapers sandwiched between the pre-Big One relics, and checked out people dressed in the trending threads. Some were rushing in and out of stores, others were hanging out on street-side espresso joints, tapping away on their cells and tablets. A rare few were engaged in some existential chit-chat, face to face. Not much litter clogged the gutters, and I saw no evidence of the growing homeless population. The LAPD kept things clean, in this part of town. I passed a few office buildings, an appliance store, a dress shop, and then paused at the bulletin board in front of the cinema. There weren’t many public boards like these around. Most information was spammed out by the gigabyte, delivered direct to your device, whether you wanted it or not.

I liked this bulletin board. The handwritten messages were a kaleidoscope of flash-diaries, mini-entries, saying, ‘I want this,’ and ‘Do you want that?’ A gust of wind surged as a delivery truck roared by, ruffling the messages, making them strain against their pins. I hooded my eyes and closed my mouth until the grit stopped flying. The papers settled on the board and I read about cars for sale, rooms for rent, yoga, dating. ‘Hey, MMA! My martial arts academy,’ I said aloud. No one noticed. There was also a slew of missing persons. I winced when I saw a picture of Daina. She was a friend of a friend who’d vanished three weeks ago. Rumor had it someone was murdering coeds. This alone was enough argument for every man, woman and child to learn how to defend themselves.

I looked away, searching until I found the recessed doors of Poseidon, the next building down. I went into security mode. The cinema entrance sat back from the sidewalk by a good twenty feet, but close to where Poseidon’s line-up would be, making containment a potential issue. Too much glass, and a nightmare between show times, especially on weekends. The parking meters and palm trees lining the street could create hazards for a crowd as well. This club needed a double loading zone. I’d be mentioning that first thing, if I landed the job. A few more steps and I stood in front of tall black doors. The only thing marking the club was an engraved trident overhead. Cute.

The first knock went unanswered. I pounded harder and it swung open. ‘I’m Ava Sykes. I have an appointment.’ It wasn’t exactly true, but my experience in this kind of situation was to play it confident and doors opened, literally.

A man in a black suit and tie, around my height, looked me up and down, mostly down. ‘He’s waiting for you.’

‘Great.’ I had no idea who he was. Billy? The manager?

My guide led the way into the foyer and down narrow stairs. I followed. Butterflies flirted under my ribs. I guess there was more riding on this interview than I’d realised. ‘You know, for a new club, you guys have some public liability issues to sort out. These stairs, for one, are set too steep and narrow. The ceiling’s too low, and I don’t know how you manage the line-up outside.’ My words came out staccato, punctuated by each step as we went lower and lower into the bowels of the building. ‘Not very well lit, either. No beading light?’ Stress let loose my officious critique mode. I blamed it on the Virgo star sign.

He didn’t respond. Warm chap. When we finally reached the double doors at sub-ground level, he pushed through. The air hit me in the face. And then the acoustics … it felt instantly like a big space. Really big. I kept walking, right into another world.

‘Oh, wow.’ I had to pause. So this is what the buzz is about.

It smelled clean, spacious, like open ocean air, and for good reason. The lower level dance floor could have housed a Boeing 747 with a space shuttle strapped to its back. The upstairs balconies overlooking it were at least six tables wide. It was done up like a Mississippi River steamboat, with chandeliers giving off vivid colours, possibly red and blue. To me they were green and navy. The red was just a guess, but I knew people liked contrast. The bar ran from one end of the far wall to the other, longer than a couple of back-to-back tenpin bowling lanes. The wall gleamed with rows of glasses sparkling on polished wood shelves. All that wasn’t the breath-stealer though. Not by a long shot.

The entire back wall was a freaking floor to ceiling aquarium, flanked by mirrors, as if the place didn’t seem big enough already. This was Poseidon alright: king of the sea. There was sunken treasure, along with a tropical reef and little sharks. I tilted my head up, way up, taking in the frescos on the ceiling, a regular underwater Sistine Chapel. If I smelled a better paycheck last night, my nose hit the mother lode in here. What a joint. No wonder every girl, guy and their dogs were lining up half the night to get in. Cate had