by Jax Garren
Danielle snapped straight, pointing a finger at him while tears dried on her cheeks. “You don’t tell me what to do. You’re my son. Not the other way around.”
That was so funny he laughed. “That implies you take care of me. Seeing as you never have, I’m going to disagree.”
The snap of her hand on his cheek stung. “How dare you talk to me like that!”
He set his jaw, felt the muscles twitch. How he wanted to yell back. To get his anger out by picking something up and throwing it. To scare her until she shut up.
It was probably what she wanted, a display that proved he was no better than her. So instead he leaned in and kept his voice as quiet and cool as he could. “Fine. Go to Carmen’s. Get doped out of your mind. While you’re at it, add a gram and put the rest of us out of our misery.”
Danielle’s eyes widened and her chin quivered. He’d struck a nerve. It was exactly what he’d wanted to do.
And he hated himself for it. Panicked regret clawed at his throat. He hadn’t meant it. The thought of his mother dead on a couch, blissed into a filthy eternity by her own hand, had haunted his dreams from the moment he’d learned what “overdose” meant.
“Javier!” Rhiannon admonished. She turned to Danielle, from screaming at her to comforting her in near record time. “He doesn’t want you to OD. He’s just being a dick.” She shot him a scathing look. “Not funny.”
He rounded on his sister. Yeah, he shouldn’t have said that, but… “You pay for her existence, enabling her stupidity. If she wasn’t a damn anchor around your neck, you’d be able to build a good life.”
Rhiannon shoved him in the shoulder, like they were twelve. “I like my life!”
“Real mature, Rhi. Shove me again.” Like he was doing better.
Danielle’s expression turned to ice. “Why are you raising our family business in front of everyone?”
He laughed, again because he knew how much it pissed them off. “When I walked in you two were screaming at each other. And now I’m the embarrassing one?”
“Reyes,” Cash’s commanding voice barked across the room, “you’re coming with me.” He waved two fingers between Rhiannon and Danielle. “Provided you’re done with… this.”
Javier stretched his neck to the side, trying to release the tension in it before he mouthed off to Cash. “What for?”
A hint of a smile flickered across the vampire’s face as he fired a finger gun at Rhiannon and strode between them, casual, like they hadn’t all been yelling at each other. “You too, witchy girl. I got a project.” Amusement lit his eyes. “If you two can work together without killing each other, that is.”
Rhi crossed her arms and glared at Javier like this was all his fault. “Apologize to Mom.”
“No.” He might be in the wrong, but he wasn’t going to apologize. To anyone else, sure, but not to the woman who’d never apologized to him. He needed to get out of this hellhole, and if that meant following Cash fucking Geirson like a lapdog, then he’d shake his tail and move. Any place was better than this bedlam. He headed for the door.
Emma slid next to him, announcing in her perma-friendly voice, “I’m gonna go too.”
Embarrassment crashed around him. She’d seen the whole damn thing, and with vampire hearing, probably heard it too. He picked up the pace. Everything would be better if he could just get out of here.
The mantra of his life.
Chapter Seven
The car ride was long and uncomfortable, with an over-bright Emma chattering away in the passenger seat of his car. How she’d ended up in his car after what had happened tonight was beyond him. But her voice was soothing, even in its false brightness, and by the time they parked in gravel somewhere between Austin and the low-income suburb of Del Valle, Javier felt almost like himself again.
Before he exited the car, he squeezed Emma’s knee in thanks, then jerked his hand away, worried that was inappropriate touching. She hated sex with him, which was so embarrassing, he couldn’t even think about that right now. But her prattle had kept him from having to say anything—exactly what he’d needed. He thought maybe that had been her intention.
She was kind to him even when he didn’t deserve it.
Now silent, they caught up to the cadre composed of other vampires, a were-jag, and Javier’s sister. Cash, still in his too-expensive suit, now with a jacket and a leather briefcase, led the way past a wooden gate and through the trashed-out yard of an old granary. The witching-hour moonlight gleamed off metal silos covered in graffiti and gang signs to warn off the wary. The must of old corn still lingered under the sweet smell of a live joint and the stench of gasoline and urine. In the cool of a November night it was bearable, but in the heat of summer the place would stink.
One of the many, many reasons Javier had gotten a medical degree was to get away from places like this. Whatever. They were going to find out what had caused the jaguar kid to say “Not again” when Ramsey had changed. Javier guessed Cash’s “project” was working with Rhiannon and her magical knowledge to figure out whether science or witchcraft—or both—was behind it.
The tall and narrow grain elevator seemed in shockingly good repair for the rest of the place, leading Javier to look up. At the top a sentry waited, machine gun in hand and aimed down at them. His heart stuttered. A bullet couldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like hell. Rhi, though… “Emma,” he muttered, giving her a warning as he stepped in front of his sister.
The jaguars were in the cocaine trade. Cash must’ve taken them to visit a cartel.
Nervous anger at the vampire’s recklessness made Javier freeze. Cash acted like he was invincible, and after more than a thousand years of straddling the line between brave and stupid, a lot of the supernatural community seemed to think he actually was. But that didn’t mean Cash could drag Rhiannon into his dangerous life with no warnings. “What are you doing?” he whispered.
Cash waved at the sentry and jerked the kid forward, like he was showing off his living invitation.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. We’re walking uninvited into a gang’s headquarters?”
“What are you talking about?” Cash murmured back. “Their headquarters is in Westlake.” Westlake, one of the most expensive parts of the city. Just like any other corporation, the top lived in luxury while the bottom lived in squalor, fearing for their lives.
A blast of Pitbull echoed around the yard as four men came from the largest silo, their own guns drawn but not raised.
“Miguel!” Sofia exclaimed. She was a jaguar, but according to Rhiannon, after she’d stopped a profitable cocaine deal, she’d been booted from Familia and was now under the protection of CoVIn.
The man ignored her and stopped in front of Cash with a respectful nod. “Geirson. What are you doing here?” He frowned at the kid. “With César.” He reached a hand out to take the kid back.
Cash released him. “I understand we’ve encountered a similar situation.” He snapped his fingers and a vampire came forward with a cell phone video showing Ramsey’s attack.
Miguel’s eyebrows lifted as he sucked in a breath and stuck his gun back into its holster. The men with him relaxed.
Javier relaxed too, imagining the watercooler talk at the hospital tomorrow. What did you do this weekend?
Normal doctor: Hung out with the grandkids. Tried sweetbreads with foamed pea shoots at the latest trendy restaurant. Attended the ballet. You?
Javier: Ate caramel-covered Hot Cheetos and visited a gang of drug dealers to talk about the potential zombie apocalypse. Ha ha. Just kidding. I golfed.
The video finished and Miguel motioned toward a different silo. “Come with me.” He narrowed his eyes. “But we’re just here to study the thing.” He shuddered a little at the word. “You see anything else you don’t like, you come back and fix it some other time. ¿Comprendes, vampiro?”
Cash, who spoke fluent Spanish with a nearly flawless accent smiled and enunciated with the worst accent Javier could imag
ine. “Vampiro comprendo.”
Miguel rolled his eyes and started forward. When the entire group followed, he halted but didn’t look back as the conversation continued in Spanish, “They aren’t welcome. Get them off our land.”
Alex stepped forward, anger rolling off the normally calm vampire. “We’re here for the same problem.”
“Miguel, be reasonable,” Sofia added.
“Not welcome,” Miguel said, tone final.
Cash thumbed backward, ordering Sofia and Alex back to the cars. Alex looked like he’d protest, but Sofia tugged on his arm, and they turned back.
“Told you so,” Cash said softly. Alex flipped him off, and Cash laughed as he started forward again.
The metal door opened on silent hinges, and Javier gasped. The silo’s interior had been converted to a prison. The stench of outside had nothing on the blood and excrement reek coming from the stacked cages. From the blended smell of fur and flesh, Javier could tell there were humans and jaguars, but what else might be contained here was beyond him. At least twenty “residents” ringed the silo, spaced between five cages per floor in six rows going up. A constant banging came from a starved humanoid on the second floor, smashing her head against the cage with a repeated clang. Gibbering from high above made him wonder how long they’d kept some of the residents.
He didn’t know why it surprised him. Though he’d never seen them, CoVIn had its own prisons to deal with vampires and other problems they couldn’t kill for one reason or another. Come to think of it, Ramsey would be in one of those now.
It made sense that every population would have such places. Although this made the US prison system look like a resort—which was saying something.
And who decided who was locked up and for how long? Drug dealers? The vampires were pompous, misogynistic asshats, but at least they weren’t making money off the misery of others. And they had a court system and at least some semblance of justice. Flawed though it might be, they were at least trying. This place just looked like hell run by narcos. And he couldn’t do jack about it.
A roar of anger brought his attention to a cage at the back.
“We couldn’t get him any higher,” Miguel said. “Barely got him in to begin with. Tranks don’t work.”
At the back of the silo an emaciated prisoner strained against the bars. Claws sprouted from his fingers, and he waved them like he could stretch the distance and eviscerate every one of them. He howled like an animal, movements growing more frantic.
“It’s a jag,” Cash commented, sounding worried for the first time Javier had ever heard.
“Ramsey was human. So was the other,” Javier said, understanding his concern. “The disease crosses species.”
“Born or turned?” Cash asked. Most were-creatures were born that way, but a human could be turned if they survived a brutal ritual. Javier theorized that were-ism wasn’t a species but a virus, infecting the host via saliva to blood or passing from mother to child at birth, like syphilis. Not that he’d use that comparison in front of a were-creature. The were community, though, treated them as if they were separate conditions. Contrary to what Javier had first assumed, turned weres were more respected because of what they’d endured to become one.
“Turned,” Miguel answered with a shake of his head, still speaking in Spanish. “One of the toughest assholes on the enforcer team.”
Cash clapped Javier on the back and moved closer to the cage, forcing Javier forward. “Is it the same thing?”
The claws from a half-turned were-creature frantically slashed for him with a single-minded intensity. The animal feared nothing and didn’t seem to recognize that it couldn’t reach them. It just kept trying. Its tattered clothes were covered in filth and attracting flies. Blood and other fluids stuck the remains of a button down to the creature’s upper chest. The thing’s pants were beyond oversized and only clinging to it by crusted black ooze. It was skeletally thin, so malnourished a human would be near bed rest. “Was he always this size?” Javier stuck with Spanish.
“No,” Miguel answered. “He was a big man. Muscles. He keeps getting thinner. We tried throwing him some food, but he won’t eat anything. Just keeps grabbing for anyone who comes near.”
Cash grunted and spoke English. “You thrown anyone in there to see what happens?”
Javier looked at him, horrified. He’d known some shitty people, but none of them would do that. “You’re kidding, right?”
Seemingly unbothered by the suggestion, Miguel shrugged. “Nah. Thought about it, but I don’t want to see that.” He shifted uncomfortably. “He ripped holes in a couple jags when he turned into this. Ate them. I think he’d rip anyone apart we put in there. I think that’s why he’s losing all that weight. He’s a cannibal. Won’t eat anything that isn’t human and breathing.”
“Like a wendigo?” Rhiannon asked.
Miguel scowled. “Only way you become one of those is eating your own. Oscar was loyal as they come before he changed.”
Rhi snorted. “Or so you think. Drugs aren’t known for promoting loyalty, or haven’t you heard?”
Miguel pivoted to shoot Rhiannon a glare. “Oh, little missy thinks she knows a thing or two, eh? Addicts are the liars. Dealers are making ends meet. If I wasn’t here, whoever you’ve got your panties bunched up about would be in the woods licking frogs.”
Rhiannon took a step forward like she’d threaten the drug dealer. Javier stuck his hand out, warning her back. He had to agree with the jaguar. Dealers were a convenience, but when Danielle and her “friends” were out of money, they’d been known to take on the dangerous task of home-brewed meth.
None of that mattered right now anyway. They had a problem staring at them with hungry eyes. “I need a blood sample. If it can’t be tranked, how do we propose to acquire one?” He studied the figure and its grasping. “It would also help if I could get a closer look. Does it have a pulse? The one today had no pulse.”
Miguel made a noise of disbelief. “Yeah, you go ahead and take one.”
Javier took one step closer, and the thing’s motions got even more frantic. “Doesn’t want dead meat, but it wants a vampire. Interesting.” He pulled the penlight from his key chain and shined it at the creature, studying its eyes. The skin around them was sunken and purple in a sallow face, and the bloodshot eyes were rheumy. “It’s like it’s decomposing. I wonder if they all shrivel this quickly, or if it’s because it hasn’t eaten.” Its pupils had dilated wide and didn’t change when he flashed the light in them. It didn’t flinch, either, and its eyes didn’t follow the light. The creature’s intent gaze continued to focus on him, the closest source of meat—of brains?—with a thoughtless focus that gave him the creeps.
He dropped his bag, somewhat surprised the dealers had let him in without searching it, and got a tube and needle for a blood sample. “Cash, think you can give me a hand here?” Cash dropped his own bag, opened it, and Javier laughed. “You have a medieval gauntlet in your briefcase?”
The full-metal glove slid over Cash’s hand like it was made for it. Which it probably was. “Doesn’t everyone?” Cash articulated the fingers, shook his head to get his hair from his eyes, and slammed the monster’s right hand against the cage, stretching its arm as far as the bars allowed to give Javier room to work safely at its wrist, where its left hand couldn’t reach.
Still, getting near the beast was unsettling. Javier had done a rotation in a psych ward with patients whose mental state had been so far gone they couldn’t see what was in front them anymore. It had been unnerving, but this was different. The creature saw him, focused on him, and howled for him with an animalistic bay that rang in his ears, igniting a primal need to run. Every hair on his neck stood up as the metallic taste of adrenaline sat on his tongue.
He pushed it back. Emotion had already gotten the better of him this evening. He wouldn’t let it happen again. He swallowed back bile and approached closer, trusting Cash to keep him safe.
The thing snar
led and whined as it struggled to get to him, but Cash held its hand securely, forcing its body against the cage. The thing took in air in irregular puffs between snarls, as if it only needed air to make noise. Javier snapped on a glove, set aside his revulsion, and touched its wrist.
“It’s hot,” he said in surprise. “Like a fever. I want its temperature.”
Cash barked a laugh. “If you’re going for rectal, you’re on your own.”
Amusement helped Javier relax into his job. “Not the plan.” He ignored his surroundings and went to work. The monster didn’t flinch or change its motions at anything he did, like it couldn’t feel the needle going in. Blood didn’t flow, making the draw a challenge, but he managed to get enough for testing. From his kit he pulled a forehead thermometer.
He stood back as far as he could to attempt a scan. The monster opened its mouth, baring a carnivore’s teeth at him. Javier stilled, watching them, then got back to work. “Did Ramsey’s teeth elongate, or is this because he’s a jaguar?”
Cash squinted at them. “Looks like a jaguar mug. If Ramsey acquired fangs, I never saw them. The first one certainly didn’t have them.”
“Does he always have teeth?” Javier asked behind him as he scanned the thermometer across the thing’s forehead. Temperature was 105, high even for a feline. “Since he became this thing, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Miguel answered. “Claws, too. They never retract. And as far as we know, Oscar never sleeps. He just howls and grunts and swipes at anything he can see.”
“So it’s possible whatever this is selects the best hunting adaptations available and makes them permanent.” That made humans crappy hosts—no teeth or claws, naturally slow and weak. Without thought, humans were pathetic predators. But jaguars? Vampires? That was a different level of problem.
The door to the silo slammed open, echoing up the towering metal. Javier froze like it was a gunshot, heart skipping into high gear. He shut down the reaction as best he could and stepped away from the thing to face the newcomer.
