Wisdom (My Blood Approves book #4)

chapter 5

  The icy wind whipped through my hair, and at this altitude, it was much colder than it was on the ground. The windowed walls of the nearby buildings were like mirrors, reflecting the city lights around us. The skyscraper jutted over fifty stories in the air, and we towered over most of the other ones in Minneapolis.

The iron bar running around the edge felt like ice in my hands, and I gripped it tighter and leaned over the edge of the building. Olivia hated it when I did this, because if I landed wrong, I might not survive a fall of this magnitude.

For me, this was just an extension of my training. I wasn't afraid of heights exactly, but I had to overcome something. My stomach twisted, and I hated how disoriented they made me feel. Headlights dazzled the roads, and people looked like tiny dots walking below us.

"Alice, will you stop that?" Olivia said tiredly.

"In a minute!"

Olivia was a stunningly attractive vampire aged well over six-hundred years,but she didn't look a day over forty, and a very beautiful forty at that. She owned the vampire club V located below the building we were in, and she lived in the penthouse suite on the top floor.

Before she retired and bought the club, Olivia used to be a fantastic vampire hunter. A handful of vampire hunters work to keep rogue vampires in order.

Some vampires can be particularly dangerous, both to humans and other vampires, and a hunter is necessary to contain them.

When I'd been attacked by a lycan vampire pack a few months ago, Olivia had come to my aide because she'd taken to me. I couldn't be sure how deep that liking really ran, but she knew I was with Jack, so I didn't worry about it.

That attack had left me reeling with how helpless I had been. Even as a vampire, I had nearly been killed and did little to help in the fight. Milo almost died, and I was powerless to save him. Just turning wouldn't be enough. I had to be strong enough to protect myself and the people I cared about, so Olivia had agreed to start training me.

"Alice, if you don't get down from there, I won't work with you anymore,"Olivia warned me, not for the first time. "Although, I don't suppose that's as much of a threat as it used to be."

We had been going over our usual exercises, which weren't that different from training for karate or kick boxing. It did involve some minor strength training, but most of it was about learning to use the strength I already had and mastering my own grace and stamina.

Tonight I had gotten her pinned with relative ease, and Olivia started complaining about being out of practice. She hadn't hunted a vampire in over fifty years.

"I was working off some anger tonight. That's all," I said. I didn't look back at her, but I felt her come up to my side. I had just gone to Jane's funeral yesterday, and this was my first time with Olivia since before my birthday.

"How are you doing with all of that?" Olivia leaned on the rail next to me.I stood on the ledge with my entire upper body hanging over the edge, but she didn't say anything more about me getting down. A gust of wind came up,whipping her long black hair around us. I kept my hair pulled back in a ponytail when I trained, but Olivia insisted that I'd have to learn to work with the length of my hair.

"Where was she?" I asked, and Olivia didn't immediately answer, so I looked over at her. "Where was Jane when you saw her?"

"On Hennepin." She nodded down to the street below us. "A block or so that way."

"Did you see her?" I squinted, staring at the sidewalk. I was too far away to see much, but even if I was right up close, I doubt that there would be much to offer.