by Debra Dunbar
“Can you do that?” I asked. “The breaking and entering thing? I thought you all needed permission to enter someone’s house.”
“There are ways around that.” Dario waved away the question, and I knew he didn’t want me, or my mother to know exactly what sort of ways he was referring to.
“The doctor I saw looked just like the woman at the Ottobar,” I told Mom. “But it was dark in there, and I only saw her for a few moments. I’d hate for us to have made a mistake based on my memory and the identification of two nurses in an elevator.”
Mom bit her lip in thought then nodded. “Okay. Go. We’ll research likely surgical centers while we’re waiting for the informant, but if he doesn’t get here by midnight, we’re heading out.”
Mom was just as frustrated with the inaction as I was, but I knew we both realized that wandering the streets of Baltimore wasn’t the best use of the limited time we had. Hopefully Dario or Madeline would find something—or James’s messenger would get here before we went out of our minds with worry.
Dario left and Mom and I got to work. It quickly became evident that there were way too many surgical centers and doctors’ offices that had an outpatient surgery suite.
“There are a whole bunch of them on West Belvedere,” I commented. “And Quarry Lake Drive, and Saint Paul Place, and Loch Raven Boulevard, and Patterson Avenue.”
“The ones on Quarry Lake Drive are in a huge building,” Mom said. “I don’t think they’d risk dragging kidnapped, drugged people through a medical complex then back out again. It’s got to be something smaller. How about this one on Joppa Road?”
I looked over at her phone. “That’s in Towson. It’s got to be close enough to Franklin Square that any vampires who are out hunting can get back quickly if they’re needed, but far enough away that any ‘oops’ deaths won’t draw attention to the area.”
“That rules out the one on Loch Raven Boulevard then.” Mom kept scrolling on her phone.
“The ones on Belvedere and a few of the side streets are right near Sinai Hospital. That’s north of Woodberry where the home was that they lured Liz to.”
“Isn’t that too far from Franklin Square?” Mom asked.
I waggled my hand back and forth. “For vampires? I don’t know. They move really fast. And I’ve seen Dario drive when he’s in a hurry. Mario Andretti has nothing on the guy.”
Mom nodded and marked down Belvedere with a question mark. “If that’s where they are, then we’ll need to leave fairly soon. Looks like a bit of a drive.”
“It’s only fifteen minutes if we hop on 83,” I told her.
We continued writing down possible areas of town, the list growing longer as the clock approached midnight. Just when I was ready to suggest we give it up and head up to Belvedere Avenue, there was a knock at the door.
Fulk went nuts, barking and dancing around. I used my body to keep him from rushing whoever had arrived, and opened the door. A woman stood on my stoop, bundled up against the cold with a North Face jacket, a knitted scarf, and a hat pulled low over her head. She had glasses on, and that was about all I could see of her.
“Are you…” She looked around nervously, then dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Are you the Templar?”
I opened the door wider. “Come in. I hope you don’t mind dogs. He’ll settle down once he sniffs your feet and gets a pat or two.”
She walked over the threshold, her gaze taking in my house and my mother who stood in the kitchen doorway with a sword in her hand.
“I can’t stay. James asked me to come by and give you this.” She thrust a piece of paper into my hand. “Is he gonna be okay?”
As she asked, the woman unwound the scarf from her neck, revealing a thick mass of curly red hair and two small marks on her neck.
Well. It seems James might have some added incentive to accept Dario’s offer.
“I hope so,” I told her. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”
She nodded. “If you see James, tell him to call me. Or text me. Something, anything before sunrise so I know he’s okay. I don’t want to be worried all day.”
“I will.” I wasn’t sure I’d see the vampire. Hopefully not. The best case scenario would be if he’d sent me this information, then got the heck out of town until the air cleared, but I had a sick feeling that wouldn’t be the case.
I saw the woman out, then opened the paper, reading the address out to my mother.
“Downtown.” I shook my head. “Practically under our noses.”
Mom sheathed her sword. “Let’s go.”
I grabbed mine off the table, quickly shoving my phone in my back pocket. “You drive. I need to text this to Dario and to Tremelay.”
“They need to know I’m handling this,” Mom warned as I locked up behind us. “This is my job. It’s justice for the murder of a Knight, and that supersedes both police procedure and whatever issues the local Balaj might have to do with this group.”
One look at the expression on her face told me all I needed to know. My mother was going to lay waste to twenty-five vampires and one mage tonight, and no one better get in her way.
Chapter 25
Mom drew her sword. Do you feel them? she mouthed silently.
We’d parked a few blocks down and walked north, the downtown area feeling strangely deserted this time of day, as if we’d suddenly found ourselves in a post-apocalyptic movie.
I held up a fist, spreading my fingers wide four times, then wiggling it back and forth before spreading the fingers wide one more time. Twenty or twenty-five vampires. That’s what I sensed. They were all here—or at least most of them were here. If the mage wanted all her mercenaries standing guard inside this building, that meant the ritual she planned to do with Liz was most likely going down tonight.
Mom nodded, pointed to me and to the right, then pointed to herself and to the left. I understood. We were to canvas the area. I pointed down the block to where the car was and Mom nodded, indicating we’d meet there afterward.
I drew my sword as I headed to the right around the building to the back before looping around the neighboring one and returning to the car.
It wasn’t the one-story, private practice I’d expected, but a four-story office building which, from my quick internet search on the way over, housed four doctors’ offices and an outpatient surgical center on the bottom floor. None of the listings said Doctor Ellen Hendricks, and none of the specialties had anything to do with neurology. This medical building housed gastroenterology folks, and I could only assume that the surgical center was for things like colonoscopies and not transfusions for resurrection rituals.
If Dr. Hendricks was involved, then she must have known the owners of the surgical center and been able to somehow get private use of it over the holidays and the weekend. And since the surgical center was on the first floor, I was pretty sure we’d be neck-deep in vampires the moment we entered.
We had three choices. There was the front-door—locked, but nothing my spelled key couldn’t take care of. There was also a back entrance where I assumed they discharged patients who might not want to walk through the lobby with other patients gawking at them. The third entrance was a fire door, no doubt to meet code for emergency exits. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have to deal with any alarms since there were a group of vampires and at least one mage in the building, but I pulled my keychain out, unwilling to take any chances. The magic I’d done on the one key might not work on an alarm system, but it was all we had outside of yanking wires or stabbing the console with a sword.
“Let’s take the front door,” Mom decided, walking up next to me. “There’s an atrium with lots of room to maneuver. There will most likely be three or four there, but first let’s take out the two watching the building.”
“Did they see you?” I asked, concerned that they may have raised the alarm.
“Of course, but your spell worked because they clearly didn’t see my sword.” She sniffed. “I was just a b
ag of blood, looking for a place to shoot up as far as they were concerned. They were both on the left side of the building down the service driveway, although they may have separated to do rounds by this point.”
“Want me to go right and circle the building while you go left?” I asked.
She nodded, pulling her sword out once more. “Think you can actually kill one this time?”
I winced at the jab, but she was right. “I’ll do what I need to do to hopefully get Liz out of there alive and with one spirit in her body.”
Mom smiled. “That’s my girl.”
It was stupidly easy. The vampire patrolling around the building watched me with narrowed eyes until I smiled at him and asked him if he had a twenty to spare for a date. He licked his lips and nodded, motioning for me to follow him behind a dumpster. I did, and plunged my blade through his heart, scooting him farther back behind the dumpster out of sight.
I met Mom at the front right corner of the medical complex.
Ready? she mouthed silently. I nodded.
We’d fight back-to-back, making sure there was no way a supernaturally fast vampire could catch either of us on our blind side. But first we had to get inside the building. Mom held back as I sauntered up to the glass entrance, pulling my key out and magically opening the doors. There were three vampires in the lobby. They hesitated, my casual confidence in entering no doubt making them wonder if I was supposed to be here or not.
That hesitation cost them their lives.
Before they could reach me, Mom was at my side. The vampires were insanely fast, but there were two of us, and our swords gave us a reach they lacked. They were obviously used to fighting against other vampires or humans armed with guns. Where bullets wouldn’t do much to stop a vampire, our Templar weapons did, and they quickly realized their error, backing up and trying to circle around us.
I put my back to my mother’s and we pivoted, swords at the ready. The vampires were injured, shaken that these wounds pained them and weren’t healing with their normal speed. We hadn’t come through the first scuffle unscathed, though. Both Mom and I had cuts from the vampires’ knives, and I had one particularly painful bruise where one had punched me in the shoulder, trying to knock the sword from my hand. He’d have done it too, if Mom hadn’t nearly taken his arm off.
One lunged for me, and I swung. He ducked, but I reversed, and as he went to avoid the blade, I smacked him on the cheek with my gold keychain crucifix.
“Ansurb,” I shouted as his flesh sizzled. “Jesu, pashtpanel indz bolor ansurb eakneri.”
The long form version of the Templar incantation was more for show as the first word had done the job. Pulling my keychain from the vampire’s face, I drove my sword into his heart.
Mom had already dispatched one, and in the time it took me to turn, she’d killed the remaining vampire. A surge of magic rolled through the building and I eyed the door to the outpatient surgical office just as it opened and over a dozen vampires poured out toward us.
My stomach twisted. This was going to hurt, and I wasn’t sure we were going to make it out of this one alive. Even if we did, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it to Liz in time.
I didn’t have a moment to think before the vampires mobbed us, coming so fast it was all I could do to parry and duck trying to keep from getting stabbed.
Shifting to the side to counter their attack, I realized two things. One—this group was far better at fighting strategy than the others had been. And two—they had managed to separate me from my mother, meaning each of us needed to cover three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around us as opposed to one-eighty.
With a shout of warning to Mom, I spun, taking several slices to my arm as I worked my way to the center of the atrium where a bank of elevators stood. I heard glass breaking, but didn’t have time to register what that sound might mean. I planted my back firmly against the wall next to the elevator, swinging wildly and hoping to connect with one of the vampires rushing me. I heard screams, felt my sword impact, but there were just too many of them. They pressed forward, getting inside my range and hindering my ability to use the sword. I reversed my grip, using the less effective pommel and trying to burn every vampire I could reach with my keychain. They pushed against me, and I found myself with my arms pinned, two vampires holding me tight to the wall. Desperate, I tried to head-butt one, but he laughed and grabbed my jaw in an iron grip, fangs glistening as he leaned toward my neck.
Before I could feel the sharp slide of fangs through my flesh, his hand suddenly loosened, and his head rolled unnaturally to the side, sliding from his neck and bouncing across the floor. I had a second to note the sluggish ooze of black blood from the stump where his head had been then I felt the other vampire being ripped away from me, his head joining the other one on the ground.
I looked up to see Dario in front of me, his clothing covered in vampire blood, kukri in hand.
“No one else bites you,” he informed me as he wiped the blade on his pants. “Except me. Maybe. In the future if we decide we both truly want that. No one but me bites you ever again.”
I smiled, thinking that was one of the sexiest, most romantic things anyone had ever said to me.
“Help Mom.” I turned him around and gave him a quick pat on the ass. “I need to go find a mage.”
There was a clear pathway to the outpatient center door with the remaining vampires concentrating on fighting my Mom, Dario, and the others of his Balaj that were beginning to arrive. And thankfully, the door was already open and off its hinges, so I didn’t need to waste time using my magical key.
Magic surged through the air again, and I followed the faint sound of chanting, trying to hurry but also very aware of the fact that there were most likely more vampires guarding the room where the mage had chosen to do her ritual.
Sure enough, I rounded a corner and nearly ran smack into one of them. With all the blood dripping from my various cuts, I couldn’t believe he didn’t scent me coming, but I still managed to catch him by enough surprise to run my sword through his chest, twisting and angling it upward to make sure I got his heart before pushing him off the blade.
A knife sank keep into my shoulder and an arm came around my neck. My arm went semi-numb, and I barely managed to keep a hold on my sword, gripping the keychain tight with my other hand. His arm around my neck tightened, and time slowed as I realized he intended to snap my neck. Without a second for even a quick prayer, I plunged the long end of my crucifix keychain up and over my head, feeling it sink keep into something soft.
Flesh smoked and sizzled. The vampire screamed and let go. I pivoted to see him clutching his face, a black hole where an eye had once been. Swinging my sword in an upward arc, I tried to aim for his neck, but my arm was numb and I’d lost more blood than I wanted to admit. Instead of taking off his head, the blade lodged between his tenth and eleventh rib.
Yeah. Nowhere near his head.
Kicking him off the blade, I stumbled a bit, then gripped my sword with two hands to try again. This time I did manage to take the vampire’s head off. Breathing heavy and staggering a little, I ran toward the door of the surgical room, praying that there wouldn’t be any more vampires to fight, because I was pretty close to tapped out and I still had a mage to deal with.
I flung open the door. The surgical room was big and bright with white walls, white floors, and tons of eye-wincing lights bouncing off the stainless steel equipment, beds, and tables. A woman in surgical scrubs held a ritual knife toward the sky as she stood next to a bed where a dark haired woman was strapped down. Both looked over at me.
The dark haired woman on the table was Liz. Recognition flared in her eyes, and she struggled against the restraints that bound her to the table.
“Help me,” she shouted.
“Portae fores objicere.” The doctor dropped the ritual knife onto the table and threw a biohazard box toward me. I batted it out of the way with my sword and it exploded in a burst of magical energy, sending blood
soaked pads and syringes at me with unerring accuracy.
I grimaced, trying not to think about Hepatitis B as I yanked three needles from my legs and moved cautiously toward the mage. Liz was still between the two of us, and I was very aware that this woman could use her as a hostage.
Instead the mage leaned down as Liz struggled. “Is it you? Is it truly you?”
Panicked that the woman might kill Liz if she didn’t give an appropriate response, I rushed her, throwing the keychain. I didn’t play much baseball as I kid, but I did joust and had a decent arm. The keychain smacked the mage in the head and she staggered backward, throwing her hands upward.
I used a half-sword grip and thrust forward, stabbing at the mage over the top of the table and Liz. My aim was true, but the blade hit a magical barrier and stopped, the force jarring through my arms and sending me down onto my rear.
As I scrambled to my feet I saw the mage look down at Liz for a split second of decision-making before she darted for the door.
I ran before I was fully upright, using my momentum to launch myself in front of her before she reached the exit. Predictably, I bounced off her force field and slammed into the door frame, knocking the breath out of me for a brief second.
Things got a little fuzzy and dark, but I shook my head and readied my sword. I couldn’t hurt her with the magical force field up, but she couldn’t exactly walk through me to leave either. It would be my physical strength against her magic in a sort of reverse tug-of-war, and as powerful as she was, I was betting I’d win that contest.
The mage stepped back and ripped the surgical mask and hat from her face and head, gasping in air. It was the doctor I’d seen in the hospital hallway. And on her hands were red, angry welts—burns from having a magical wand break in her hands.
I bent my knees and prepared to hold my position. “We know who you are, Doctor Ellen Hendricks. Your vampire mercenaries are all dead by now. Even if the police manage to get to you first, you murdered a Templar Knight, and you’ll answer to God for that crime before dawn.”
